All Good Things (Part 1 of the Steps Into Darkness Series)
by Pandademonium666
Summary: Trigger Warnings: Violence, Sexual Content, Drug Use A simple farm girl on a remote world discovers a family secret. Traveling with a crew of unlikely companions, they uncover an ancient evil that may have serious implications for the galaxy. Star Wars verse but mostly original characters.
1. Chapter 1

The little droid hobbles past hyperdrive parts, partially assembled B1 battle-droids, and a burned out repulse booster to hide in vain behind the section of gangplank that serves as his owner Tydesh Ashrand's desk. Ty stomps after him through the hollowed out Taylander Shuttle that served as home and workshop for the grey-haired human and his teenage daughter.

"Get out here! The damned thing is not going to blow," Ty angrily assures the frightened power droid.

"Gonk," the droid replies, defeated, as he walks reluctantly over to the ancient looking water purification unit where Ty waits impatiently.

Ty plugs the device into the GNK droid's standard power socket and moments later the purifier's indicator lights turn from yellow to green. Brown, brackish well water begins to pass through tubing into the device and a large plastic drum begins to fill with clean water.

This particular GNK droid, GNK-J3B, had been slightly modified. Threebee, as he'd come to be known by Tydesh and his daughter, had been upgraded with an improved central processor. GNKs, like other power droids, are equipped with the most basic AI. The most common criticism by owners is that they were stubborn; that they would often refuse to charge certain equipment. This wasn't actually stubbornness but part of their programming. The droids are programmed to be extremely cautious and if there was even the slightest chance of disaster, the droid would refuse to plug in.

The Ashrands occupied a small rocky planet past the Outer Rim in Wild Space that was known to the locals as Dargenas. Dargenas had been the site of some long forgotten battle of the Clone Wars and its vast grasslands were littered with salvage. Tydesh had upgraded GNK-J3B's AI so that the droid would follow his commands more often and provide power to equipment a factory stock power droid wouldn't get near let alone plug into. Threebee did trust the human (he hadn't blown them up yet), but the original power droid programming was still very much a part of his data-brain.

"Gonk! Gonk!"

Threebee could tell that things were about to go terribly wrong even before the purifier's indicator light turned from green to red and the device wailed with a loud continuous siren. A power droid is equipped with an internal fusion generator. This is the source of the massive amount of power that they could generate. That energy requires core containment using the same technology as a deflector shield. The smallest fluctuation in the containment field is detected by a number of internal sensors. Threebee could tell that the unit was about to blow.

A small panel on the front of the droid slides open and his manipulator arm darts out and quickly disconnects from the failing piece of equipment just as a huge plume of steam hisses loudly from the purifier.

" Gonk."

"I know! I know," Tydesh groans and swiftly kicks the purifier in frustration. Even with the purifier unplugged from the power droid it continued to blast its loud siren.

"Shut up blast you," Ty screams at the machine, frantically trying to disconnect its speaker with his spanner before giving up in frustration and then stabbing at it until it falls silent.

"Gonk."

Ty, dejected, collapses into his swivel chair and rolls it behind his desk. He lets out an audible sigh and buries his face into grease caked hands. After a moment of quiet repose he lifts his head to address his droid, "Alright... So I guess we're heading into town tomorrow to get a new purifier."

"Gonk."

"I know. You were right. Shouldn't have used that thing again."

The door, suddenly and violently swings open and slams hard against the bulkhead as daylight floods the dimly lit room, startling Ty and the power droid. Tydesh leaps from his seat and bangs his head on the low ceiling. A bright-orange, teenaged twi'lek girl in a filthy gray jumpsuit bounds into the old shuttle gasping for breath.

"Is everything okay? I hearx a siren and..."

"It's okay, Mila," Ty hissed through clenched teeth, rubbing his head, "Just slow down."

"You didn't hook up that purifier again did you?"

Ty buries his face into his palms again, "Don't you start in on me too, Mila."

The girl giggles and walks over to where the GNK droid stands near the now leaking machine, "Didn't you try to warn him, Threebee?"

"Gonk."

Zamila pulls a spanner from her heavy utility belt and tightens a connector on the purifier, putting a stop to the leak. Tydesh stands up from his desk and walks over to Zamila, putting his arm around her shoulders and kisses the top of her head.

"You need a shave," Zamila says with a shudder as the man's three-day beard brushes against her.

"We'll see... If there's enough water left maybe."

"I can skip my shower."

"Don't do that," Ty exclaims with mock alarm as he backs away, waving his arms as if to dispel an offensive odor.

Mila lunges and punches him playfully in the arm, "Don't be a moof-milker!"

Ty chuckles and sits back at his desk, groaning slightly. Zamila grabs a towel and throws it down at the pool of water that had formed in front of the malfunctioned purifier.

"The SE-2s keeps wandering away from the field," Zamila says as she picks up the soaked towel and takes it to the refresher to ring out into the shower drain, "Found one chasing after a lizard."

"They're overdue for a memory wipe. Bring them in when your done for the day. How is it going out there?"

Zamila follows Ty back into his workshop carefully inspecting the dirt under her fingernails, "Well, the jogans are almost ripe and the chando peppers are the biggest I've seen. It's been a good growing season so far. At this rate we can pack away the rations for awhile."

"I'd love that. I hated those rations even when I was in the navy," Ty brushes his long grey hair from his face, "Well Mila, that field out there is all your doing. I can't grow anything green if my life depended on it."

"We get all our credits from your repair work and besides, the SE-2s do all the hard labor. Speaking of, I better get down there before they wander off again."

Zamila leans over, kisses Ty on the cheek and runs back outside.

Tydesh was constantly amazed at the beautiful young woman that Zamila has grown into; not at all the wide eyed youngling he took from Ryloth all those years ago. He is not her real father, biologically at least, but he is the only parent she will ever know.

Old Ty stood up and groaned as he stretched out his aching back, "Well Threebee, let's go see if we can get that R3 up and running."

"Gonk. Gonk," Threebee replies following the old human over to the disassembled astromech in the corner.

Zamila walks out into the fields she had worked for as long as she could remember. Though the sun is low in the sky it is still warm and she stops to take in the sweet smell of the prairie grass being carried on a gentle breeze. Mila throws a lek over her shoulder and begins her search. When she does finally locate her errant worker droids she finds them amidst a grove of Jogan trees, staring out at Dargenas's Red Moon as it rises over the horizon.

"C'mon you two. Get back to work," Zamila scolds the stationary worker droids who snap out of their trance and take up bags of fertilizer. A droid will start developing a sort of personality over time without regular memory wipes, and while they are more interesting to interact with, they become harder to rely on.

Zamila looks up at the shining red disk that had so captured her droids attention moments before. Soon it would be high over head, the sun gone beneath the western horizon, and the silver moon would rise in the east.

Dargenas was the only home she has ever known. Life with her father was happy enough, if not a little boring. At times Zamila would take her speeder bike into town and go to the cantina. She listened intently as visiting freighter crews, looking to fill their holds with repaired surplus and scrap metal, spoke of the places they have been and the places they were headed. Mila lets out a sigh as she turns her attention to the first star that appears. Probably not a star at all but one of several, distant gas giants that orbited their sun. _Almost anywhere is more interesting than this place. _She thinks.

Her father had taught her about all things mechanical. She knew her way around a spanner better than many crew mechanics. But out here, her fingers in the rich, black soil, the sweat of her brow cooled by the gentle breeze, is where she felt most at home. She hated to admit how much she loved their boring simple life. The sun had begun it's descent behind distant hills and the air carried with it the chill of approaching night. Zamila rubs her arms to warm herself and blows on her hands.

"Alright you two, time to head in!"

Zamila heads back home with the two droids in tow. When she opens the door to the shelter she finds Ty on the ground, dual-linked analyzer in hand, tinkering with what appeared to be an astromech data brain. She knew better than to interrupt him when he was focused on something. The little power droid waddles up to Zamila to greet her.

"C'mon Threebee, I got to wipe these two."

Zamila initiates the memory wipe and goes to the refresher. She'd use the sonic and leave what remained of their fresh water for Tydesh. He really did need it more than her. She changes into a top and shorts that she'd made from clone trooper body gloves and starts on dinner. It would be harvest time soon but in the meantime she'd have to make due with the old Republic rations that seem to litter their little planet. The clone troopers are rumored to have been genetically modified to enjoy the taste; an advantage Ty and Zamila did not share.

She'd been cooking up rations since she was tall enough to reach the counter so, as long as they had the seasonings they needed, she could whip up something that could pass for food. She hardly notices Tydesh finish his work to get cleaned up. When he returns, with all the scruff and grease washed away, she thinks he looks ten years younger.

"What have you been working on, dad?" Zamila asks, tasting the rations, and then mixing in more seasoning.

"Trying to get this thing up and running. Gonna try to sell it in town tomorrow. These R3 units make great nav computers"

Zamila, finally satisfied by the taste of the meal, turns down the burner and sets the pot to the side to cool, "You think I can come with you? I've got a couple of bottles of the jogan wine I made last season that should be ready."

"I suppose," Ty sets the data brain on his desk and takes his seat at the dining table.

After dinner Ty tells Zamila that he had something to take care of. He had been disappearing after dinner quite often lately. He was always vague and evasive but Zamila had suspected that he had begun seeing the widow Lina Done, a zeltron woman who lived not far from their home. Mila was not completely ignorant of the things adults get into. Ty managed to avoid the topic as if it were a wild rancor but she did have friends on nearby farms who talked, and she'd done plenty of reading. She'd even kissed a boy, or had been kissed at least; the Kieras boy. He surprised her with it, and then she surprised him with a punch to the gut. She didn't mean too, she thought he was kind of handsome, but her reaction had been far too embarrassing and she'd managed to avoid him for quite some time.

Zamila clears the table, "C'mon, Threebee," she says before heading to the old shuttle's cockpit that served as her bedroom. The little power droid hobbles behind her.

The room is a mess, as usual. Mostly clothes strewn about. She scans the bookshelf, half filled with books, and half filled with different trinkets and baubles shed collected over the years. She decides to put on the music player but it doesn't turn on.

"The battery is dead again," Zamila pulls a bottle of wine out from a cupboard and pours a glass while Threebee plugs himself into it and it comes to life with the sounds of upbeat jizz.

Zamila takes a sip of her wine. It was sweet, but not too sweet which meant it was ready. It would fetch a few credits in town. Tydesh didn't like her drinking, but he wasn't here; and besides, she'd grown the jogans and she made the wine. It was hers. When she turns to see the power droid moving side to side to the jizz's rhythm, she nearly shoots the wine out of her nose.

"You're too much, Threebee," Zamila snickers.

"Gonk. Gonk," he agrees.

Zamila sets her glass down and dances to the music. She had never been taught to dance, her father didn't even like music, at least not jizz, but there was just something about music that compelled her to move. She'd spend all day working in the fields, or helping with repairs, but this was hers. She turns up the volume and continues to dance. Her father wasn't around to tell her to turn it down. He's with the Done widow and will be there until morning. _Gr_oss. She thinks.

The upbeat, fast tempo jizz had ended and the next song was slow and gentle. It had a certain sadness to it. Zamila pours another glass of wine and lays back onto her bed and stares up through the cockpit glass at a cloudless sky filled with the beige and blue glow of the two-hundred billion stars of a galaxy that they were on the far edge of.

"It's all out there, Threebee," Zamila says taking another sip of jogan wine, "Trillions of people on billions of worlds."

A woman's voice joins in to the somber melody; her voice is sweet but mournful. The words of the singer are unknown to Zamila. She can't even place what language they are in, which Zamila actually preferred. When you don't know the word's meaning, the words can mean what you want them too. Zamila liked to think it was from a young woman at the other end of that vast galaxy, dreaming of something more. She yawns. Her eyes are sore and they will have a long day tomorrow. When the song ends she shuts off the music player and sits on her bed.

"Good night, Threebee," Mila says as she places her empty glass on the floor next to her bed.

"Gonk. Gonk."

She rolls to her side, drawing the blankets close and drifts off into sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Zamila is walking along the stream when she sees a black loth-cat. She begins to follow him when he disappears into the tall prairie grass. She follows but as she walks the grass gets taller and taller until it is above her head. She hears the groan of a starship engine and she finds herself consumed in its shadow as it passes overhead.

The ground opens up beneath her and she finds herself falling in a black void. She tries to scream, but her mouth makes no noise. She is suddenly pulled backwards. She becomes aware that she is sitting on solid ground and a hard stone wall is at her back. She tries to stand but her ankles are shackled. She tries to move her arms but finds them shackled to the wall.

She screams out, "Help me," and dozens of other voices echo hers.

Hands reach out from the darkness, grabbing, and pulling at her, tearing at her clothes and pulling her down into the ground. She tries to break free from their grasps but they are too strong. She screams again.

The young twi'lek is startled awake from her nightmare. She is drenched in sweat and the cold morning air is freezing. She pulls the covers tightly around her and looks up out of the cockpit to see that only a few stars are still visible in a dark purple sky. The sun will be up soon. Zamila stands with her blanket around her and rubs her eyes. It was an awful dream and she'd had that same one once before not too long ago.

She changes into fresh clothes as quickly as she could. The cold was unbearable. She puts on her best; black pants, synth-leather boots, and an old flight jacket. It wasn't often they went into town. Just because she was just a farm girl, she didn't have to look the part. She spies her utility belt hanging from a hook on the wall but decides she will not be needing it and instead picks up a crate on the floor containing several bottles of her wine.

Zamila leaves the repurposed Taylander to find Ty struggling to load Threebee into their dark blue V-24 landspeeder. She places the crate of wine down and rushes over and helps give a final push that sends the power droid tumbling into the speeder's cargo area with a thud. Tydesh arches his back to stretch it and lets out a groan.

"Have fun last night, dad," she asks through a smirk.

"Yea… uh… I don't know what you're talking about. I was working," Ty says, his face turning a bright red.

"It looks like your zeltron girlfriend is rubbing off on you," the young twi'lek snickers. She didn't know why she picked this morning to let her dad know that his rendezvous weren't as covert as he'd assumed, but it was fun to make him uncomfortable.

"Just… Help me finish loading," Ty says exasperated, trying hard to not make eye contact with the grinning girl.

After about an hour's journey across rolling grassland, a myriad of shallow streams, and sparse groves of trees, they finally see Anchevor in the distance. Anchevor was one of only about a half-dozen settlements on the planet large enough to be considered a town and it was the only one with an operational spaceport. Most of the other settlements were scattered, single family homesteads. The town was little more than an inn, a cantina, and an outdoor market surrounding the spaceport. There were only a handful of permanent residents that lived in town, but the population at any time could vary wildly depending on what, if any, ships were docked. Dargenas didn't have much to offer visitors, so busy times were few and far between.

The little planet had plenty of junk metal from the Clone War, some produce from local farms, but mostly it was a little self contained local economy; and occasionally, a place to transact business out of the view of the ever watchful eye of the Galactic Empire. Getting far from the empire was exactly the reason Tydesh came and settled here. He became a deserter the day the Republic Navy became the Imperial Navy.

When she would him about it he'd either change the subject or say he didn't want to talk about it. The imps shot deserters on sight and the more space he could put between them and himself, the better.

Ty pulls the speeder into a dirt lot near the spaceport. The normally quiet town was filled to bursting with all manner of visitors meaning that there must be several ships docked. Zamila was thrilled. Other than her father and a few friends who lived near them, she didn't see too many others. The girl was shy but she did love to people-watch.

"Mila, were going to check out purifiers and I'm going to try to sell a few things," Tydesh squints at his watch, "You want to meet me back here in about three hours?"

"Sure, dad. I love you," she kisses his cheek and takes her wine crate from the back of the speeder.

"Love you too."

Zamila easily sells off her wine. Jogans were not so easy to grow on Dargenas and there was a market for good wine. One day she'd get a distiller and make brandy which would net her even more credits. She pockets the creds and decides to walk through the spaceport. She could get nearly any vessel flight ready though she couldn't fly one herself. She loved ships and today the spaceport didn't disappoint: A Corellian YT-1250 freighter, a Starfeld ZH-40, a heavily modified Haor Chalk Sheathipede shuttle.

At the last port there was SoroSuub 3000 yacht. It was painted black with gold trim and it appeared that the distinctive tall observation windows on the vessels flanks had been replaced with durasteel plate. It had the forward facing laser cannons found on some variants but had also been modified with a turret on the belly and another aft and topside. It was once a luxury yacht, but now it was something else.

Zamila suddenly felt queasy and lightheaded. _I shouldn't have skipped breakfast. _She thinks as she closes her eyes and takes a few deep breaths to center herself. She leaves the spaceport and heads into the market. She orders a pack of root chips and meat on a stick from a street vendor. The duros that sold it to her claimed it was nerf meat, but it could have been rat for all she knew. It was good but the liberal use of seasoning piqued her suspicions of the meat's origin. Truthfully she was too hungry to care and it did seem to settle her stomach.

She finishes her snack and breaks the stick before throwing it and the chip bag into the waste bin. Her father told her that unscrupulous street vendors would retrieve sticks from the garbage to recycle them so always break your sticks.

The cantina was across from the market in an ancient mud-brick building. She could hear a local group of musician's sorry attempt at jizz over the sound of busking street merchants and a passing speeder. The double jocimer was not in time with the rest of the band and the seven-string hallikset was badly in need of tuning. _Bad music is better than no music. _She thinks, deciding to enter.

The small cantina is dimly lit and packed wall to wall, with spacers of every variety. A dozen or so round plastech tables are scattered throughout the dark room. It is warm and stuffy and the intermingling smells of alcohol and body odor almost put Zamila off from wanting a drink. Wimmo, the ithorian bartender ran up and down the length of a flat piece of salvaged durasteel that served as a bar, struggling to take orders. A game of sabacc was being played amongst a duros freighter crew while they passed the hookah pipe. A devaronian spice dealer was selling the drug to a rodian man in armor. She saw a small group of twi'leks conversing in the corner but as usual, she doesn't approach them.

Zamila had as much of an issue with others of her species as they did with her. Being raised by a human had its disadvantages. Zamila didn't speak twi'leki and even when they could speak to her in basic, Zamila struggled with the accent. Twi'leks used their lekku in a sort of nonverbal communication which she had never learned. The girl would fiddle with her lekku when she was bored or nervous, but for the most part, kept them bound up behind her head.

Realizing that in this crowded bar, unless she wanted to shoulder through the mass of waiting patrons, she would not be getting a drink. She turns to leave and wait by the speeder for her father, possibly grab a pint at the far less crowded ale tent in the market, when a voice catches her attention.

"Hey! Twi'lek girl!"

Zamila turns back to the bar and searches the crowd for the source of voice. Maybe she had misheard or the voice was calling to someone else.

"Orangey!"

Zamila sees a young human man sitting at the bar, smiling and motioning to her. He was in his late teens or early twenties, Zamila guessed. His skin was fair and his head was crowned with a mop of thick, dark hair. His face had several days worth of stubble, but his clothes were dark, fine, and likely expensive; possibly shimmersilk. While she did not care for being called 'orangey' one bit, Zamila found the boy quite attractive and was flattered that he'd taken notice of her in this crowd. She smiles crookedly and walks over to him.

The boy purrs, "What are you drinking, tooka doll?" His voice was smooth and his accent was that of someone highborn and of the core worlds.

"A bespin fizz I guess," Zamila replies smiling back at the young man.

The young human turns around and heads back to the bar. He waves a handful of credits which immediately gets the attention of the beleaguered ithorian. Wimmo quickly mixes the drink and the boy returns moments later with a tall glass of fizzy red drink.

"I'm Zamila Ashrand," she quickly offers, extending her hand before the boy tries out some more clever nicknames. Tooka doll was better than orangey but only a little.

He takes her hand and gently presses it to his lips, "I'm Andan. Let's find a place where we can sit down, eh?"

Andan turns and leads her towards the corner furthest from the bar and. His scent trails behind him, undoubtedly some expensive fragrance, sweet and spicy. Seated at a dark corner table are an aqualish, a rodian, and a quarren. All are dressed in fine clothing that could nearly rival Andan's own.

Andan utters something to the trio in a strange, harsh, and foreign tongue. The men get up from their seats and take their drinks with them without speaking a word. Andan pulls out a seat and offers it to Zamila and then takes his own seat across from her.

"That was weird. They just gave you their seats?"

"They are friends," Andan replies, finishing his drink and setting down his glass, "So Zamila, where are you from?"

"Here," she utters dejectedly and sips her fizz, the bubbles tickling her nose.

"I didn't think anyone was from here," Andan chuckles.

"I was brought here when I was little. I'm from Ryloth originally I guess, but I don't really remember it. It's just me and my dad."

"Is he here? He could sit with us if you like," Andan offers before scanning the cantina.

"No. He's taking care of some stuff."

Zamila is enthralled by the handsome stranger. He tells her about his family and home back on Coruscant, the summer cottage on Alderaan near Istabith Falls. He tells her about being accepted to the University of Alderaan before realizing that he did not want the life his family planned for him; to be an Imperial bureaucrat.

He'd always loved racing, so he and a few friends started promoting some races out in the rim. He put away a few credits and sponsored a racer, and then a team on Kuat. Now he's scouting to start a new team for the circuit on Ord Mantell.

"What kind of racing," Zamila asks.

"Speeder bike. I'd heard on Tatooine that there was some fantastic racing on a few worlds in Wild Space."

"There's no racing around here." Zamila says, shaking her head She could see the disappointment on his face and she wanted to fix it, "There's plenty of BARCs scattered all over the place, or pieces of them at least. I've got one fully restored and fixed up a couple for some friends. No racing though. Maybe on the far side."

"You ride?"

"Sure… but not racing."

"Zamila," Andan's face lights up and he grabs her hands, "Racing is the least of it. You can be trained. What's important is looks, personality, some backstory," Andan stands up from his chair and gesticulates grandly, "Beautiful girl from a desolate world on the far side of the galaxy, riding on a war relic that she herself found, and fixed. I could sell that. I could sell that all day! You could be huge!"

Zamila's mind began to race at the possibilities. She found herself completely enthralled at the prospect; travelling across the galaxy with this handsome young man and the excitement of speeder bike racing. She'd thought often of traveling but never considered anything resembling celebrity. Her heart was aflutter when the realization set in. _Father. I can't just leave him here and it's not safe for him to come with. Father! _She looks down at her watch. _I'm late!_

"Andan," Zamila interrupts, "I'm so sorry. I've got to go. I'm late to meet my dad."

"If you are not interested you need only to say so " Andan replies coolly.

"No. No. I am interested. Really interested. It's just complicated. Stuff to figure out. Let me go talk to my dad," Zamila says as she stands up, "Where can I find you?"

Andan stands as well and takes her hand, pressing it firmly between his, "Do not worry, tooka doll. I'll be here. Go talk to your dad. Tell him what's going on. Bring him back here and I'll be happy to answer all his questions. "

"Okay," she beams with jubilation, "We'll be right back. Thanks for the drink."

"Don't mention it. Anything for my racing star. See you soon."

She tries to keep her composure as she turns to leave but she wants to squeal with delight. Maybe they could figure it out. Tydesh definitely wants his little girl to be happy, to find fulfillment, to make her mark on the galaxy. She exits the cantina and is blinded by the bright light of day. Her eyes slowly adjust as she finds herself almost skipping through the market. She feels as if she's walking on air when suddenly she is lifted off the ground. She had been grabbed from behind and she finds a large, clammy hand over her mouth.

She tries to scream but it as if the hand had been firmly glued to her face. She kicks wildly but her feet only connect with air. She tries to claw at her assailants face, feels the quarren's moist tentacles, but her arms were quickly pinned to her side. The girl can see that she is being taken down the alley behind the marketplace.

Zamila has a brief glimmer of hope when she sees the aqualish man, Andan's friend, rapidly approaching them, but her hopes are dashed when she sees the roll of spacer's tape in his hand. The girl fights but the men are too strong.

Her mouth is taped closed and her wrists were bound behind her. She feels a sharp prick on her thumb. The twi'lek is dropped onto the hard ground. She kicks at her captors before she is held down and her ankles bound. The quarren throws her over his shoulder and walks on, his aqualish partner following close behind.

Her captors converse back and forth in the same strange tongue she heard back at the cantina. That feeling of nauseousness returns stronger than before. Zamila is dropped onto the floor beneath the the long black nose of the SoroSuub yacht. She tries to scream through the tape but it is futile. She is shadowed by a figure that stands over her. A young human man with a dark mop of hair and wearing the finest clothes.

"Relax, tooka doll. There's no need to be alarmed. My men do everything they can to avoid damaging the merchandise," Andan tells her, his voice cold and indifferent, "They Will pay a premium price on Nal Hutta for specimens, such as yourself. The hutts take good care of their property. Trust me.

"I don't like doing the snatch and grab thing if I can help it, " Andan remarks staring down at the helpless girl, "But I can't pass up turning a profit on a detour to this rock. You understand."

Andan's voice is different now. The practiced accent of a privileged core worlder is gone. _Everything has been a lie! He's done this many times before. _The twi'lek's heart sinks.

The quarren and aqualish stoop down haul the girl into the vessel when there is a blue flash and a sound. _A blaster! _The aqualish falls back and out of her view. There is another shot and the quarren crumples over on top of her. His weight, combined with the tape over her mouth was making it difficult to breathe. Not only that but every breath she draws into her nostrils is filled with the quarren's heavy scent; a sour, salty, and fishy smell.

"Drop the blaster," Tydesh yells out, his voice fierce and commanding; a voice Zamila had never heard.

"You must be the father," Andan replies coolly.

"If I stun you like I did your friends, you're going to wake up without a few parts that you might miss. Blaster on the floor and cut her lose."

Zamila hears the clatter of the blaster on the pavement and Andan appears above her. He pulls the limp quarren off her and unsheathes an ornate vibroblade. He cuts her binds and she hops to her feet. She tries her best to remove the tape over her mouth painlessly but it still stings.

"Get their blasters," her father shouts.

The girl picks up three blasters from the pavement. One she puts in her jacket pocket, the other she tucked into her waistband, and the last she held firmly, fighting the urge to turn it on her assailants.

"I know this feels like winning, tooka doll," Andan remarks with a smug grin, "But you're going to wish the old man never showed up and that you made it onto my ship."

Zamila hisses and spits into Andan's face, "Bilge-bug!"

Andan smiles and wipes the saliva from his face "I'll be seeing you around, little Zamila.

Father and daughter back out of the spaceport, their blasters trained on the smirking human. Once they make it through the arched exit, they turn and begin to sprint to their speeder. They hear the high pitched whine of blaster fire and see a vegetable cart to their right explode and shower them with pulp.

"Don't stop running," her father shouts, "Zig zag!"

A bith pushing a junk cart is struck by an errant blaster bolt. Zamila wants to stop and check on him but the shots are getting closer to making their intended marks.

They reach the speeder where Threebee is already waiting inside and leap in as quickly as they can manage. They both strap in and Tydesh launches the vehicle in reverse. The twi'lek girl turns to look and sees the rodian from the cantina sprinting towards them.

"Keep your head down," her father grunts as he pushes her head down to nearly reach her knees.

"Gonk," Threebee cries, knowing that he doesn't have that option.

A final shot hits the rear of the speeder with a shower of sparks but misses anything vital. They are finally clear from all of Anchevor's obstacles. The rodian man shrinks in the rearview until he cannot be seen at all.

Inside the speeder it was completely quiet for what seemed like an eternity. Zamila was shocked, stunned by the harrowing set of events, the gravity of which had finally set in. Tydesh seethed with anger, trying to calm himself.

"Do you know how close you came Zamila, to finding yourself on some filthy slug's pleasure barge with a chain around your neck?"

"Who were…"

"Slavers, Zamila!" Tydesh slams his fist onto the console.

"I didn't know," the twi'lek utters in almost a whisper.

"How many times have I told you to be careful?" Ty says shaking his head.

At this, Zamila could feel her anger rising within her. It sounded as if she was being blamed for what had happened to her. She already blames herself. _How could I have been so stupid. _She directs her attention to the distant, rolling hills and the scrub brush that whips past them.

Ty clears his throat and continues, "I brought us to Dargenas to…"

"You brought us out here because you deserted!" the girl interrupts.

She instantly regrets salting that old wound but she is unable to apologize. She turns away from her father and stares back out at the passing landscape.

Tydesh's face softens. The ire and aggression drained from him. He looks over at the young twi'lek.

"It's more complicated than that, Mila," Tydesh says in almost a whisper.

The rest of the voyage home neither speak a word.


	3. Chapter 3

When the speeder pulls up to the old shuttle it is late in the afternoon. The speeder comes to rest and Zamila springs from her seat and rushes inside. Tydesh lets out a sigh and exits the speeder. His daughter is angry with him but she's at least safe. For Tydesh Ashrand, today was a manifestation of some of his worst fears. Zamila is a young woman now and she was going to attract the attention of men, some of those men will be unscrupulous. Tydesh unloads the speeder himself, struggling to get Threebee out but is eventually successful.

He was starting to get too old for this rugged living. He knew he couldn't expect Zamila to stay with him until he is gone. He also knew that he was to the point where he couldn't do this alone. His daughter has become more and more critical to their existence while his own importance had been in steady decline. He didn't like thinking about these things so he pushes it out of his mind.

"Gonk," Threebee offers to comfort his owner, but is ignored.

Even from outside Tydesh could hear the loud jizz blasting through the rusting hull of their home. _She can hate me as long as she's safe. _

Ty decides that he'll do some work outside rather than go inside and endure his daughter's terrible music, or knock on her door and demand her to turn it down.

He looks around at their property fully appreciating the work they had done. The life of honest work and liberty they enjoyed that few in the galaxy enjoyed. He sees the worker droids in the field pulling weeds. Tydesh looks out onto the vast plains when he notices a small reflection. His heart sinks into his chest when he notices that it is moving closer. He turns and sprints as fast as he can into their home.

Zamila lies in her bed with her feet up on the wall trying to clear her mind, to process the traumatic experience she suffered in Anchevor. She is startled when her door swings open and her father rushes into the room.

She thinks to scold him about not knocking when pulls her old flight jacket from off the floor and frantically begins pawing through it.

"What are you doing," the girl demands before she sees him pull a small disk from the jacket's collar.

"They've followed us," he says dropping the device on the floor and crushing it beneath his heel, though he knows it is already too late.

Tydesh throws Zamila the jacket, "Get ready. We don't have much time," he tells her before running out of her room.

Her anger was instantaneously replaced by anxiety and fear. She fumbles to pull on her boots and jacket. She buckles on her utility belt, swapping out a torque spanner with an old, but reliable DC-17 blaster pistol. Zamila also tucks one of the slaver's blasters into her belt: it bore a resemblance to other BlasTech pistols she'd seen but it must have been a newer model she wasn't familiar with.

When Zamila rushes into the workshop her father is hastily attaching pieces of phase 1 clone trooper armor on his body. Six B-1 battle droids march in formation out of a storage container Tydesh kept them in and exit the shuttle. The droids had been modified and equipped with salvaged clone trooper armaments. Tydesh had used pieces of phase I clone armor to add additional protection to the droids. Ty turns and pulls a bag from his desk handing it to his frightened daughter.

"Take this," he says shaking the bag, "It's all our credits. Get on your bike and head for the cave, the one you used to think was haunted."

"I am so sorry, daddy," the girl cries as she embraces him.

"It isn't your fault, sweetheart. Stay at the cave until first light. If I haven't met with you by then," he says as his eyes well with tears, "Charter a flight off world. Go somewhere in the rim but avoid the Empire. The spacers may know a place."

The old veteran embraces his daughter tightly and she begins to sob. The sound of blaster fire erupts outside and he knows they are out of time. He releases her.

"Go! Out the back!"

The young twi'lek runs out of the room and Tydesh Ashrand fits the last pieces of his plastoid armor in place. He smiles when he hears the distinctive moan of his girl's BARC start suddenly and quickly fade in the distance. He taught her as best as he could. Zamila would have to make it in this world without him now, he only wished they had more time.

Ty lifts a heavy Z-6 rotary cannon off the floor and steps over to the door, "I'm coming in behind you, fellas," Tydesh speaks into his comlink as he hobbled over to the door.

"Roger. Roger," the lead replies.

"Gonk. Gonk," Threebee pleads for his master not to go out.

"Wish me luck, old friend."

Tydesh kicks open the shuttle door and steps out awkwardly wielding the heavy Z-6. Ty sees two speeder bikes streak past in pursuit of his daughter. He hopes that she made it far enough to have lost them but needs to ensure that the search party doesn't get any larger.

Five remaining slavers are crouched behind an open cockpit landspeeder for cover. Three of the B-1s lie destroyed, showers of sparks spewing from their chests. One of the battle droids was trying to flank on the left and the remaining two from the right. Tydesh saw his opening.

The barrels rapidly spun releasing a stream of bright blue blaster bolts. The rotating barrels on the heavy weapon gave it a strange gyroscopic effect, like it wanted to move on its own and Ty just needed to steer it.

Ty concentrated the Z-6's fire on the landspeeder the slavers used as cover and would use to pursue his daughter if given the chance. Blaster bolts struck the speeder with enough force and at such a high rate of speed that it was being pushed back. It moves until the repulsorlifts fail and it drops to the ground with a loud thud. He expends the last of the ammunition and drops the heavy weapon on the ground.

The slaver's landspeeder was certainly dead, a twisted black mass of smoldering durasteel, and unless one of them was a slicer, it would take them weeks to override the security on his speeder. Whatever the outcome of this fight, Tydesh made sure that Zamila would not have these men chasing after her for awhile.

Smoke from the vehicle obstructed his view. It is silent for a moment. The remaining droids continue to march into position. His hope that his enemy had been defeated is dashed when one of the B-1s takes a blaster bolt that removes its head, a second droid is struck in the chest and falls, and finally the last droid is struck several times and crumples to the ground.

Tydesh falls back to find cover in the doorway to their home. He is showered by sparks when several rounds strike the old ship's hull. He pulls an old clone trooper DC-15 rifle from behind the door and returns fire. He can see through the gun's scope that three combatants remained.

There is a sudden volley of blaster fire so Ty ducks inside to avoid being shot. When it abates he swings back around and sees two of the men running to his left and outside of his field of fire. _I'm getting flanked!_

The slaver still covered behind the twisted speeder wreckage fires another volley. Ty knows the shooter is just trying to keep him engaged while the others sneak up to hit him on the side. Tydesh bolts the door from the inside. Tydesh kicks the desk over and stumbles over to get behind it. Threebee hobbled over to him.

"Gonk."

"I know! I know," Ty yells at the power droid, "Get behind the desk, Threebee. They're coming!"

Tydesh aims his rifle at the door. There are several quiet, tense moments before the bright light of a plasma cutting torch traces the outline of the shuttle door casting the dimly lit room in a ghostly blue. The door drops away with a loud clang and Ty fires indiscriminately into the opening.

There is no return fire, no noise from the other side of the opening. Suddenly a small metal ball flies through the doorway and skips across the shuttle floor until it comes to rest just before the table barricade.

"Blast it…"

Tydesh is thrown back against the shuttle wall by the bursting concussion grenade. He is utterly disoriented, all he can hear is a loud ringing. He tries to stand, and stumbles a little. He realizes he had dropped his rifle in the explosion and he draws his pistol. Ty sees a bright flash and his shoulder erupts in searing pain so severe he falls to the ground and struggles to remain conscious.

Tydesh tries to reach for the pistol he dropped lying next to him on the ground but his arm doesn't move. He looks down at his right shoulder and sees a smoking hole, the stench of burning flesh and scorched plastics fills his nostrils. He tries to lift himself up with his good arm when a shadow falls over him.

Tydesh looks up to see the rodian who had been firing at their speeder when they escaped from Anchevor. The slaver is dark green and his face is covered in scars. Ty can see the man's mouth moving but can still only hear the loud ringing. The rodian levels his blaster at the old veteran.

"Well, you bloated bantha-tick. What are you waiting for," Tydesh Ashrand mutters before a blaster bolt extinguishes his light forever.

The rodian holsters his blaster and starts to rummage through the messy workshop, looking for anything of value.

"Gonk," Threebee calls to the lifeless body on the floor, but he knows his master is gone.

The aqualish and quarren enter the shuttle with blasters drawn.

"It's taken care of cowards," the rodian declares in huttese, a language Threebee understands as part of his original programming, "It was only one old man."

"Old man put up quite the fight," the quarren grunts, slinging his rifle over his shoulder, "Took out Rex and Kezu."

"Any luck with his speeder," the rodian asks, picking up Ty's blaster, looking it over carefully.

"The security protocols are more complex than usual, but I'm sure he's got enough junk here that I can use to patch an override," the aqualish snorts, picking up and inspecting parts on a nearby shelf.

"Spread out. See what goodies the old fool has stashed around," the rodian commands, walking from behind the desk.

"Gonk," Threebee objects.

The quarren, startled, swings his blaster and takes aim at the power droid but the rodian gestures for him to calm down.

"It's a stupid power droid. We'll take him, along with the rest of the junk. Now, spread out."

The three slavers ransacked the shuttle. Cabinets were broken open, items were tossed and the slavers began piling up items of value near the exit. The aqualish man walks into the workshop with a fistfull of Zamila's undergarments snickering to the others. Threebee knew that after they were done here, they would join in chasing down Zamila. He was not smart, but he knew that much.

GNK-J3B hobbles over to the broken water purifier, still lying on the ground where Tydesh had been working on it just yesterday. His manipulator arm pops out and grasps the device's power cable. Threebee plugs into it and looks at the red indicator light flashing. It's alarm does not go off; Ty had destroyed it. The new one was still in the speeder. The power droid's internal sensors were going off. His internal pressure was building. The rodian saw what was happening, but it was too late. Threebee does not try to vent the excess heat through his feet, instead he shuts down his core containment.


	4. Chapter 4

Zamila's speeder bike weaves swiftly through a grove of trees. The two bikes chasing her are much newer and faster than hers but her superior knowledge of the terrain has prevented them from getting too close, so far at least. One of the riders, a devaronian by the look of his horns, is an exceptional rider and at the rate this chase had been going he'll be on her before she reaches the caverns.

Zamila's bike flies from the sparse grove and onto a grassy plain. Her familiarity with the landscape will no longer help her and if she doesn't do something and soon, the chase will be over. As she turned her head to see one bike, and then the other speed onto the plain she has a strange feeling; a tingling on the nape of her neck.

A wave of overwhelming sadness overtakes the young twi'lek and her mind is taken away from the chase. Her view of the vast sea of prairie grass is blurred as her eyes well with tears. Her father Tydesh Ashrand is gone. She doesn't know how she knows it, but she knows. It's as if a connection to some critical component had been severed.

Zamila wipes her tears with the back of her jacket sleeve. _I will grieve him if I get through this. _Her sadness is replaced with anger; anger towards these men, but even more towards herself. If she'd stayed home, if she'd ignored that terrible human boy, she would be home cooking dinner with her dad right now. He would still be here and she would not be running for her life.

The devaronian pulls up alongside her and begins to veer towards her. She can see his sharp-toothed grin as he closed the distance between them. The horned slaver's grin melts away when Zamila pulls her blaster from her utility belt and aims at the forward stabilizer of his speeder bike. He tries to slam the air brakes but it is too late. Zamila squeezes the DC-17's trigger and the bright blue blaster bolt finds its mark. The bike drops forward and buries itself in the soft ground, ejecting a plume of rich black dirt that showers Zamila. The devaronian is launched high into the air at incredible speed. The twi'lek can hear the blood-curdling scream over the hum of the BARCs engine. She'd hoped that his landing was fatal, for his sake; though she did find herself finding a sick sort of pleasure at the idea of one of her attackers writhing in the tall grass like a crushed creek beetle for hours until the death he'd been praying for finally takes him.

She looks behind her and the other rider has slowed, deciding it safer to follow from a further distance. She sends a couple of blaster bolts his way to let him know how wise of a decision that was. Zamila knows she would be at the caverns soon. She would get there first, take up a defensive position, and hope that her dad had taught her well enough to survive a shootout. The young twi'lek knows it is going to be kill or be killed; she did not want to be taken alive.

Zamila is suddenly blinded by a bright, white light. The vast grassy plains that were seconds ago dimly lit by a sun that had just dipped below the horizon were suddenly lit as though it were a sunny summer day. Her shadow stretches far ahead of her. The twi'lek nearly loses control of the speeder bike when she is rocked from behind by a massive shockwave followed by a deep rumbling and a powerful gust of hot air. It is difficult to maintain control of the bike, but she manages. She turns to see an orange cloud of flame reaching up into the sky, very similar in appearance to the mushrooms she'd pick in the rainy season.

The explosion came from the direction of the Ashrand's home and Zamila knows that everything she had ever known is gone. Her room, her garden, her droids, her father, everything, vaporized in an instant. There was only one thing they owned capable of such an explosion.

She knew that many would think her silly that she'd get sentimental about a GNK power droid. GNK-J3B had been with them for as far back as she can remember. He'd never been wiped. He carried the memory of her from the time she was a toddler until she'd just left home for the last time. He was more than a "stupid gonk droid" as her friend Sarisi called him; he was her friend, he was family, and now he was gone.

Zamila's father gave the little droid enough autonomy to ignore his core programming. Ty did it so Threebee would plug into junk. He couldn't have foreseen that his droid would have avenged his death and help his daughter escape. If she escapes. _Goodbye, Threebee. _She thinks, trying hard to block out the memories of a life that was now gone forever.

As she approaches the cavern she lets off the throttle. She looks behind her and sees only miles of prairie grass dimly bathed in the pink glow of the red moon. _Must of lost him. _She skids into the cave entrance, jumps off the bike, and kneels behind it with her pistol drawn. She wants to lie face down in the gravel and sob for hours but she takes a deep breath and steadies her aim. The girl focuses on her breath. _In… Out… In… _She is afraid even to blink.

Zamila is startled by the sound of stones shifting behind her. She quickly ries from her kneeling position, swivels around to face the inky blackness of the cavern and lights it up with a wild barrage of blaster fire. _Nothing. _She turns back around to face the mouth of the cave but she had been blinded by her blaster fire. She is startled by a loud pop and finds herself thrown down onto the floor on her back. She had fired her blaster on reflex but the shot lands harmlessly into the gravel floor. The wind had been knocked out of her by tje fall and she found herself gasping for breath. She tries to move but she is unable to, her arms are pinned to her side and her legs are held tight tkgether. She has found herself in some kind of net that continues to tighten around her as she wriggles.

"Hey there, tooka doll," his voice is mockingly cheerful, "Quite the little trouble maker you turned out to be."

Zamila is flooded with fear and helplessness, "Please... let me go," she manages through shallow, strained breaths.

"Oh… we are long past that, tail-head," Andan remarks, his voice dripping with venom.

"What do you want? What are you going to do to me," Zamila continues to struggles but it is useless. The more she struggles, the tighter the net constricts around her.

"Well," he snickers, "At the beginning of all this I only wanted what everybody wants. Credits."

Andan walks closer, his boots crunching the gravel floor. He kneels close to her and she can smell his sweat over the spicy sweet fragrance. He pulls a vibroblade from its sheath and drags its dull edge across her body. Zamila trembles in fear recoiling from the blade. He cuts away several strands of net near her head liberating one of her lekku. He strokes it gently. Zamila cringes, tries to pull it away, but his grip is firm.

"Stop," she pleads but he continues brushing his soft fingertips across it, making Zamila shudder with disgust. She wants to scream for help, but know there is nothing and no one for many klicks.

"You and that stupid old man have made me very angry," his voice is cold and emotionless, "After you've cost me a speeder and a couple good men I have heavily considered saying, blast profits."

He drops Zamila's lek on the floor and presses his boot down on it firmly. The sharp gravel digs into Zamila's skin and she screams out in pain.

"I thought maybe I'd sell you to the most discount brothel near the busiest spaceport I could find," Andan sneers, applying more pressure to the sensitive appendage, eliciting guttural groans of agony from the helpless twi'lek, "Sell you to a place that will have you see dozens of clients a day. Once every spacer within a parsec has had their turn with your exhaust port, once you are too old, or too diseased to make money, you'll be turned out onto the streets to beg."

Andan lifts his boot and Zamila gasps for breath between frantic sobs.

"I would come back every couple cycles, just so you would not forget that it was Andan Dosk that you had to thank for everything," he kneels and continues in a hissing whisper, "I was ready to give you that future until I saw your blood test."

With all of the horrible events of the day she'd all but forgotten the pin prick in the alley. Consumed with pain, fear and helplessness, she tries to plead with the hateful human but can only manage an unintelligible mumble.

"You see Orangey, we do a blood test before we make off with a girl because they aren't worth a pile on bantha fodder if they're diseased," Andan stoops near her again and continues in a hissed whisper, "We didn't find disease. We found something else."

Andan continues, marching triumphantly around her, "That stupid old man had no idea what he was sitting on. Or maybe he did. Maybe that's why I found you out here on this rock. The Empire is going to pay top dollar for you," Andan's loud and cheerful voice echoes through the cave, "I can finally get my bounty cleared. I can possibly even get a license out of this, pick up merchandise from almost any system, do business in the core. You are going to buy me a very comfortable life.

"What will they do with you, you may ask? That is not Andan's concern," the human sits down next to her and stares into her eyes, "What I do know is that I can't bear the thought of parting with you too soon. We will head to Nal Hutta, unload the rest of the cargo first and eventually, when I become bored with you, I will take you to Coruscant and claim the rest of my prize."

His eyes are wild and he laughs like a person whose mind had broken. Zamila was so full of anger, fear, and disgust. She had never hated a single thing in the galaxy more than this man. He reaches for her lek once more. The young twi'lek wanted nothing more than to never be touched by this man again. He reaches but his hand stops short. His face distorts with confusion and he reaches again only for his hand to freeze centimeters from her.

Zamila did not know what was going on. She knew only that she did not want to be touched by Andan again and he couldn't touch her. Andan's face twists with anger and Zamila wishes she could wrap her hands around his scrawny neck and squeeze the life out of him. To her shock the man starts coughing. _Is that me? Am I doing that?_

"Look," the slaver says, his voice hoarse, "Maybe I've been a bit hasty, I…"

His words are cut off by a coughing fit. Zamila didn't want to hear anymore from him. As Andan's coughing fit becomes more violent, she can see the fear and confusion on his face. It only makes her hate him more.

"I'm… sorry," Andan utters through gasping breath, "let.. you… go…"

"Oh, we're long past that, fuzz-head," the young twi'lek growls.

In the slaver's face she sees something; A helpless, fearful, and confused expression. Her mind runs. _He looks like a little boy. He has a mother. Will he be missed? Is there someone who loves him? _With Zamila's sudden empathetic connection with her captor he is able to take several, ragged, hacking breaths, and the redness in his face drains away.

Zamila is considering what she will say to bargain with this man, to try to secure her release, when he unsheathes his vibroblade. As quickly as her bout of empathy had surfaced it was replaced with anger, rage, and hatred. _He is not going to let me go. He took everything from me for his greed._

The blade slips from Andan's hand and falls to the ground when Zamila focuses her rage again. His face had begun to turn red and his eyes bulge. He claws wildly at his neck leaving red marks on his skin where tiny spots of blood were drawn to the surface.

"I can't bear the thought of parting with you too soon," Zamila hisses, allowing the slaver one last breath before resuming his strangulation.

Andan falls backwards, striking his head against the cave wall, leaving a dark crimson streak as he slides to the ground. Zamila continues to squeeze as his body convulses. After what seemed to her as an eternity the slaver Andan Dosk was no more.

She had grown up hearing the stories of the Jedi from her father. She had never thought in a million cycles that she had their powers. It had all made sense to her now; Tydesh's desertion, her removal from Ryloth, their quiet existence on Dargenas. _He gave up everything to keep me safe, and it still wasn't enough._

Zamila was completely drained. She wanted nothing more than to cry her eyes out and then sleep for days but she couldn't risk being found in such a vulnerable state by cave rats, or worse, a pack of prairie stalkers. She felt a duty to make Tydesh's and Threebee's sacrifice mean something. She sees the vibroblade gleaming in the moonlight. She is completely bound except for her lek, which was still sore and aching from being stepped on.

After a long and maddeningly frustrating couple of hours the girl was able to move the blade close enough to get her fingers through the net and onto the blade's hilt. Once a hand, and then her arm is free, she cuts away the rest of the net.

Zamila stands. Weak and wobbly, she almost loses her footing and so braces herself against the cave wall. She looks down at the slaver's pale, cold corpse. Other than some of the insects that would attack her crops, she'd never taken a life. Today she had taken two. She goes to check through his pockets and his body is stiff and rigid. She bends over to vomit but only dry heaves due to her empty stomach.

She eventually manages to rifle through his pockets, grabbing a blaster, a handful of credits, and a small bottle of fragrance which she promptly smashes onto the ground. Zamila considers burying his body but decides against it. _Blast him! Let the beasts scatter his bones._

The day would break soon. She knows her father isn't coming. There's no reason to stay in that cave with her kill any longer than she needed to.

"If these caverns weren't haunted before, they will be now," she tells herself with a smirk before pushing the BARC back out onto the plains.

The air is cold and damp. The breeze pricks her skin and she wishes she'd had worn something warmer than her dusty old flight jacket.

"Time to claim the rest of my prize," she calls back to the lifeless slaver.

_There is nothing for me here anymore. Nothing tying me to this place. No one. _She fires up the old speeder bike and heads straight to Anchevor. She couldn't fly but that's not a problem a few credits couldn't solve. As she speeds across the grasslands and considers the places she would go, Zamila takes mental snapshots of the tall grass, the rolling hills, the little creeks. She takes one last look at the little planet in uncharted space that she had called home, and dreams of what destiny awaited her amongst the stars.


	5. Chapter 5

Zamila Ashrand approaches the lowered ramp that extends from the side of the black yacht. She feels that same sickness in the pit of her stomach traversing the steps as she had the other two times she was near the vessel, though it was not nearly as strong as before. _That can't be a coincidence. _She thinks.

Zamila had gone straight to the spaceport from the caverns. She'd considered stopping by the zeltron woman that her father had been seeing to tell her what had happened, but figured the news would spread soon enough. It hadn't occurred to her until she'd gotten to Anchevor and found it empty, but she would be presumed dead as well.

She bribed the port master, an elderly gran in filthy coveralls, for his silence and help with locating a pilot with her BARC speeder bike and about 40 credits. The yacht was the only vessel that remained docked but the port master assured her that there were several good candidates to pilot the vessel near Anchevor.

Zamila enters the ship onto the mid-deck where the state rooms and the main living area were located. She is immediately disgusted by the smell of mildew and stale body odor as she passes by what must have been the deceased slavers's living quarters. She opens each room, edging the doors open quietly with the barrel of her blaster. The rooms are a mess; clothes strewn about, food left out, bedding piled up. The rooms are empty so she makes her way back to the dinning area.

The room was dark, lit only by small red lights hanging above several small tables piled high with papers, parts, and plates encrusted with the remnants of meals. She is startled by a humanoid figure standing beside one of the tables. Zamila approaches and as she gets closer she can make out the large eyes and insectoid face of a LOM series protocol droid. She assumes he is deactivated until it begins to walk toward her.

"Stop," Zamila tells the droid leveling her blaster at the droid, "identify yourself."

"You made it back here and you are not bound. Though very unlikely, I am to assume that you have somehow incapacitated Master Andan and his men," the droid' s voice is deep and Zamila cannot determine if it is sadness or indifference that is emitted from his vocalizer.

"They're incapacitated for good," she smirks and stabs her blaster barrel at the droid, "Name?"

"I am 9-LOM," he says making a slight mechanical bow towards the twi'lek girl, "formerly in the employ of Andan Dosk. I am at your service, mistress?"

It takes the girl a moment to get that 9-LOM was asking for her name, "Oh… I'm Zamila. Zamila Ashrand."

"Mistress Zamila," he says taking another bow, "I will remain in your service for as long as you live or until the day my circuits go out," he stops and nervously shifts back and forth.

"It is so rude of me to ask and we've only just met," 9-LOM says anxiously, " but, if you would please give me a memory wipe."

"You want a memory wipe," Zamila asks with incredulity. She'd worked with droids her whole life and had never been asked for a wipe.

"Yes, Mistress Zamila.I have witnessed horrible abuses to sentient beings and have endured some abuse myself," 9-LOM informs her, "You have ended the life of my former master. Please do not let him live on in my processor."

"Of course," the young twi'lek says as she approached the protocol droid.

"Mistress Zamila," 9-LOM says putting up his hand, "I am eager but you may want to deal with Gurz up on the observation deck first."

"What! Why didn't you tell me sooner," Zamila scolds the droid as she rushes against the wall, aiming her blaster up the spiral staircase.

"Gurz had just gone upstairs and there was a ninety to one chance he would be up there for ten to fifteen minutes based on past behavior," 9-LOM explains, "We had plenty of time for introductions, mistress."

Zamila ignores the protocol droid, stalking silently toward the stairs. The staircase is lit much better than the dark dining area. She leans heavily onto the outside railing, pointing the blaster up the stairs as she ascends.

As Zamila reaches the top of the stairs it's as if she runs into a wall of hot, humid, and fetid air. The walls drip with condensation and the smell makes her gag a little. The scent is unlike anything she'd ever encountered; a mix body odor, stale sweat, and bodily wastes. The large observation windows had been painted over, allowing only a little daylight through. She peaks over the stairs and can see several durasteel cages welded together against the far wall. She counts eight female captives, mostly human but two were twi'lek like herself, and one was a zeltron. The captives all sit or lie on the ground while a shirtless quarren man goes from cell to cell dragging a hose with him.

A human woman of about 30 cycles in age walks towards the quarren carrying a black plastic pail. Her hair is a mass of dark greasy curls, her skin oily and grimmy, she is barefooted, and her frayed dress was at some point light in color, but now dark grey and dingy. The quarren's flabby torso jiggles as he excitedly paws at her. Stepping back defiantly, she holds the bucket as if she were going to toss its contents onto the slaver.

"Tooska chai mani," the woman spits angrily.

"E chu ta," Gurz grumbles as he quickly steps back, nearly tripping over his hose in the process.

The tense moment passes and the woman places the bucket on the floor where the quarren's hose sucks up its contents with a disgusting, wet, slurping noise. While the slaver is hunched over Zamila fights the urge to shoot him in the back. It didn't feel right to her for one thing, and also while she was a pretty good shot, she wasn't so good as to avoid hitting any of the prisoners.

Zamila creeps out onto the observation deck floor. Several of the captives saw her, but tried to act like normal, all except a young human with bright red hair who leaps to her feet and throws herself at the bars.

"Help us," the red headed woman cries.

Gurz drops his hose and runs to the airlock at the back. Zamila follows in pursuit briefly until the airlock closes behind him and the quarren leaps over the railing. She could try to chase him down, but she decides to render aid to the captives instead. His friends are dead, and he didn't even have a shirt on his back. How much trouble could he be?

The keys were nowhere to be found but fortunately Zamila located a plasma cutting torch on the engineering level. The women thanked her, some asked about where they were, most left the ship as quickly as they could. The human woman who had stood up against her captor was the last to be released.

While the other women moved about their cages like anxious monkey lizards, waiting to be let lose, this woman calmly watched as Zamila cuts through the latch. The door swings open and the woman steps out.

"Mistress Zamila, the captives have all left," 9-LOM informs.

"Where is here," the dark haired woman asks. She speaks with a thick accent and it is clear that while she can speak it, basic is not her primary language.

"Dargenas," Zamila replies.

"Never heard of it."

"That's not surprising."

The dark haired woman nods thoughtfully and then extends her hand, "I'm Jez."

Zamila takes the woman's hand and it is soft, not calloused like her own, and felt delicate and frail like a small bird, "I'm Zamila Ashrand."

"Ashrand? That's not a twi'lek name and you seem too young to be married."

"I was adopted," Zamila replies.

"Okay," Jez shrugs, "I'm calling you Zee."

"You're staying?"

"Yeah, if you'll have me," Jez smiles, her pale blue eyes lighting up, "Dar… whatever… doesn't sound like much. I figure you're the captain now and I kind of owe you. I can't do much but I'm a fast learner."

"Can you fly?"

"Me," Jez puts a hand to her chest, "I couldn't drive a landspeeder if my life depended on it.

But if you're looking for a pilot I heard these guys say they had a pilot on the engineering deck. They like to talk in huttese, gives them a false sense of security since not everybody knows it. I'm fluent so..."

Skeptical of Jez's ability, 9-LOM steps forward to interrupt, "De wanna wanga."

"H'chu apenkee," Jez answers back.

The woman and droid spar back and forth in the guttural tongue for a few moments until it appeared that 9-LOM was satisfied.

9-LOM turns back to Zamila, "The woman's huttese is better than her basic. She is certain of what she heard and I have little reason to doubt her."

"Okay," Zamila agrees, "I didn't see anyone down there when I got the torch but maybe I missed them."

The three head down to the engineering level. The two women exit the elevator with 9-LOM close behind. True to her word, Zamila initiates 9-LOM's memory wipe. The wipe would take some time so Zamila and Jez investigate engineering.

The level was in stark contrast to the rest of the ship. While the main level was disgusting by any measure, engineering was as if nobody had set foot in it since the yacht had been launched from the shipyards on Sullust. Every tool was in its place and everything was tidy and neat. The crew quarters appeared as though nobody had ever slept in them.

"Hey, maybe these guys didn't know all this was down here," Jez says jokingly.

"Maybe they were afraid of cleanliness," Zamila replied.

It was more likely that there wasn't anyone on the crew with any technical skills and they figured they'd leave everything in place for somebody who did.

Some people can have very organized workspaces but are slobs at home, or like her father, a workspace that looked like a rubble heap with dozens of current, unfinished projects, but his personal quarters were those of a career military man.

Jez steps in front of Zamila. It was obvious she'd spotted something. Zamila hadn't noticed on the upper decks and it wasn't until she was following her through this sterile environment, but the poor woman smelled terrible. Zamila had no idea how long Jez was in that cell. Zamila had narrowly avoided the same fate only yesterday.

The other girls Zamila had released from bondage seemed broken, but not Jez. Based on appearance, Jez had been there at least as long as anybody but it seemed to have little effect on the human woman. It had earned her the admiration of Zamila, but she decided to give her a little space for the smell to dissipate a little all the same.

"Oh, Zee," Jez says excitedly, "I think we found our pilot."

Zamila steps forward and in the cargo portion of the engineering deck was a dark metallic object, the features of a man protruding from its surface. She had heard of people being frozen in carbonite but had never seen it herself. She switches on the overhead light to get a better look.

The man looks to be in his twenties. He was human and his expression was somewhat unsettling. It wasn't unsettling because it was grotesque. Zamila imagined the process was painful, if not extremely frightening, but it looked as if he was in quiet meditation with a hint of a smile.

"He's kind of cute," Jez remarks.

The man did appear to be pleasant enough looking, but whether or not he was 'cute' and or a pilot, Zamila was still a little uneasy about releasing him. He was frozen down here for some reason. The men who did the freezing were a consideration, but still, he was a stranger and Zamila has had some recent negative experience with strangers.

Zamila's concentration was broken by a loud ringing. The communicator on the wall flashes red. It was an incoming call, but from who? She hesitantly approaches the communicator.

Zamila holds down the button, "Hello?"

"This is Captain Veltzir of the Imperial cruiser _Defenestrator_," a loud, very proper sounding man's voice blares through the speaker, " We are enroute and expect any occupants to disarm, exit the vessel, and await contact."

"Okay," Zamila says shutting off the comm.

"Poodoo," Jez remarks, "The Empire?"

It didn't make sense. Why would the Empire show up here on Dargenas now. The only thing she could assume is that Gurz was told her little secret when Andan and the rest of the gang regrouped for their assualt on her home. Gurz had to have got his tentacles on a long range communicator, and hailed the Empire in hopes of getting back the ship, and possibly a reward for turning her in.

The only long range communicator she knew of was in the port master's office, meaning that either the old gran betrayed her or had been incompacitated. In either event no pilot would be coming.

"Help me wake him, Jez."

"But…"

"Just help me," Zamila interrupts.

Zamila had some experience with carbonite repulsor sled controls since imported produce would often come on them, but she never had to do it for a frozen sentient before. She presses the buttons and the man's figure begins to glow orange and the carbonite that encloses him dissipates.

The man's beige tunic and loose fitting trousers are soaked. His skin is pale. He suddenly jerks to life and gasps for breath. After several ragged breaths he curls up and shivers violently.

"I was trying to tell you he was going to be real sick."

"What's that smell," the man remarks.

"Are you a pilot," Zamila asks anxiously.

"Is that you smelling like that?"

"Are you a pilot or not," asks angrily.

He peers out of heavy lids in Zamila's direction, "I'm a damned fine pilot," the shivering man declares, "Only one problem."

"If it's money you're after…"

"I'm blind. I can't see a damned thing."

Zamila's shoulders go slack and her head drops to her chest. Her grand adventure would be over before it began.

"I mean, I'm not blind-blind," the human male says, "It's just hibernation sickness. If you let me get a little nap…"

He is interrupted by the communicator beeping. Zamila walks over to it and holds down the receiver button.

"What are you still doing on board that ship," the Imperial captain growls angrily, "I am sending a squad of troopers and they will be on you any moment. You had better exit the vessel at once."

Zamila releases the receiver and the call ends.

"I see," the man says, "I'm going to have to talk you through it."

"What?!"

Zamila anxiously throws a glance to Jez whom already has her hands up, wearing an expresion that tells Zamila that it has got to be her.

"Help me up," the man says with outstretched arms, "I do not want to entertain the Empire today."

Jez and Zamila rush over and hoist the man so that he is leaning heavily on their shoulders.

"I'm Rast by the way," the sick man offers, "And one of you smells terrible."

The women ignore his comment and rush as quickly as they are able up to the cockpit. The open the door and Rast motions over to the right side of the cockpit where the copilot's seat was located. They drop the man into the seat and tighten the harness around him. Zamila sits down in the pilot's seat buckling up as well, and Jez straps into what would presumably be the navigator's seat as it was situated near large screens which look like they could be the controls for the nav computer.

A shadow is cast from above and it could only be the shuttle bringing a squad of stormtroopers.

"Now what," Zamila barks anxiously.

"What kind of ship you got here?"

"We got to hurry," Jez says gripping the arms of her set.

"SoroSuub 3000."

"Easy. Controls similar to a Fang."

Rast gives clear concise instructions walking Zamila through retracting the ramp, turning on the main power, and firing up the ion drives. Rast points and describes controls as clearly as if he could see them. By the time Zamila is engaging the repulsorlifts, they can hear a scraping noise which could only be the sound of the troopers putting cutting torches to the hull.

"Give her some throttle," Rast says, "The lever over here."

Zamila slides the lever and the ship lurches forward. The troopers on the ground begin firing but it has little effect other than making Zamila a little nervous. She pulls back on the controls and the ship begins gaining altitude until they pierce the cloud tops.

"You're getting a feel for it. I can tell," Rast says.

The compliment puts her at ease. She had never seen her home from this height and it really was beautiful, though she didn't know if she would ever see it again. Zamila is startled as the entire ship shakes. Thinking, or at least hoping it was turbulence she doesn't react. When it happens again she is certain it is not.

"What's happening," Jez yells out.

"We're gettin hit, stinky," Rast replies, "Push the throttle all the way and get us out of atmo," he tells Zamila rather calmly, considering.

Zamila does as she's instructed and a pair of bright green laser shots pass over them.

"Can you see what's chasing us," Rast asks.

Zamila looks in the rear display and sees two pods pressed together between wings that curved inward, "Tie Bomber."

"It's configured for transport otherwise they'd have hit us with something worse," Rast informs them, "It's a tug but so is this. If you keep your speed they won't catch up. Stinky?"

"Stop calling me that you wet pile…"

"Can you work that nav computer?"

Jez exhales, "I think so. Where should I try to set it for?"

Just then the ship shakes as if it would fall to pieces. Sirens blare in the cockpit.

"That wasn't the tie," Zamila exclaims.

"Yeah, no kidding," Rast scoffs, "How we doing on those coordinate, stinky?"

"E chu ta, sleemo! Where?!"

The ship is rocked by another volley of turbo lasers and Zamila sees a Gozanti-class cruiser, likely the _Defenestrator_, come into view.

Rast and Zamila cry in unison, "Anywhere!"

There is a moment of tense quiet before, "Okay I got it!"

Rast takes the controls and commits them to the mystery coordinates. The ship leaps into hyperspace as a fatal volley of turbo lasers from the _Defenestrator _ finds empty space.


	6. Chapter 6

The ship drops out of hyperspace and Zamila breathes a sigh of relief. Her copilot undoes his harness and stands.

"Okay," Rast says stretching, "I've got to lie down."

Zamila hears the buckles unfasten behind her and turns to see the red-faced human woman spring from her seat.

"Here, let me help you," Jez says before connecting a solid blow to his stomach. The man, the wind knocked from him, doubles over and Jez bends and whispers in his ear, "That's for all that 'stinky' talk."

"Fair enough," Rast manages through labored breath.

"Now," Jez continues, "Let's get you laid down."

Rast drapes an arm over the woman's shoulders and the two leave Zamila alone in the cockpit. Zamila sighs again and turns her head to see where their mystery coordinates hand landed them. Filling nearly every bit of viewable space was a massive gas giant. It was for her the most remarkable sight she'd ever laid eyes upon, light blue like the skies on Dargenas but with bands and ribbons of darker cerrulean streaking across it. They appear to be in orbit along with a mass of ice crystals which the large planet's tidal forces had denied coalescing into a solid body. They were lucky that the jump had not brought them into the debris field itself, or worse.

Zamila powers down the ion drives and leaves the cockpit. She walks out to the main living area. She'd forgotten how terrible everything smelled and decides to take one of the modest, but infinitely cleaner cabins on the engineering level.

She powers up 9-LOM and they make their introductions again. She envied the droid just a little; being able to have all those bad thoughts and memories wiped away with a few buttons pushed. But then, it all goes, the good with the bad. She would lose Andan's face when she was murdering him and the whole horrible ordeal back home, but also fishing with her father on the creek, or riding speeder bikes with her friends. She decides she wouldn't wipe her memory, even if she had the option.

Zamila assumes that whatever the droid had experienced was quite terrible for him to insist upon the wipe. A droid will develop identity and personality given enough time and experience. A full wipe is more akin to death than forgetting.

Zamila instructs 9-LOM to try to tidy up whatever he could. While not strictly within his programmed duties he was happy to be useful.

Zamila selects one of the three crew cabins. It was small, functional, and clean with little more than a bed and a closet. There was a shared refresher with a vac tube and a sonic, as fresh water would be reserved for the upper decks. This was just fine for the young twi'lek because while she'd love a real shower, what she wanted most of all was a quiet place and clean bed.

She had no idea how bad she was aching until she layed down and her body sunk into the mattress. As quickly as the reality of her physical pain set in, her emotional pain caught up with her as well. Zamila had killed a man and lost her home and father less than a day ago. She cries herself to sleep.

Zamila wakes with a start from a deep and dreamless sleep. She is disoriented and it takes her mind a moment to catch up. She wasn't entirely sure how long she'd been out but felt refreshed at least. Zamila had yet to understand this particular difficulty in regard to life on a starship. Day and night were terrestrial concepts that had no reality in the vast vacuum of space.

When she heads back up to the living area, Zamila realizes she must have been out for a very long time. All of the trash and clutter had been cleared from the table tops and they gleamed in the light. She could hear laughter near the front of the ship. When she comes across her new human acquaintances she finds them playfully sorting through a pile of clothes.

She almost doesn't recognize Jez. Her mop of dark, greasy curls had been transformed into shimmering auburn locks. With the grime washed away, her skin was fair and flecked with little dots about her shoulders, nose, and cheeks. Her dingy dress was thrown into a pile with the rest of the refuse and she wore black shimmersilk top similar to the one she left Andan rotting in but it had its sleeves torn off and it was tied up to reveal her midsection. A pair of dark-red drawstring pants had been rolled just above her knee. Zamila was not attracted to girls, but she was certain that Jez was the most beautiful one she had laid eyes upon.

The relationship between the two humans had obviously shifted in the time Zamila had been out. They hadn't noticed Zamila walking into the room so she clears her throat to make her presence known.

"Hey, Zee," Jez says smiling.

"How long was I out?"

"As long as you needed to be, Captain," Rast replies.

The title made Zamila feel strange. It made sense in a sabacc table, winner-take-all sense the ship was hers, though no court in the galaxy would see it that way.

"Me and Stinky were wondering where we're headed," Rast asks.

Jez lunges forward and playfully punches him in the arm, "Shut up!"

_I really had been out. _Zamila thinks. When she had last seen them 'Stinky' had been enough to compel insults and violence; now it was a pet name. Zamila felt strange. She hadn't thought much about Rast before but there was something like a possessiveness she felt toward him. She felt threatened by the beautiful woman and how connected they seemed. She didn't like the feelings, and tried not to indulge them, but there they were.

"I hadn't really thought about it," Zamila answers.

"Well," Rast speaks stepping forward and leaning in like he was going to tell a secret, "I know a place.

"It's not on any charts, so we won't have to duck the Empire. I have it from a good source that there's some excellent salvage. We can lay low, fix what needs fixing, pick up some items to sell or trade."

"Yeah," Zamila nods, "That sounds great."

"What is the ship's name by the way," Rast asks.

The words come with little thought or doubt, "_Black Cat_."

Zamila believed the black loth cat in her dream was trying to warn her, or possibly lead her to where she is now. Had she listened Tydesh could still be alive, and she'd still be growing jogan fruits and chando peppers on Dargenas.

"_Black Cat_, okay," Rast nods, "When we get back to civilization we'll need a slicer to change the transponder codes."

"I can do it," Zamila informs.

"Okay," Rast grins, "Bad girl."

Changing the transponder codes on a ship wasn't particularly difficult for a person with Zamila's technical abilities, but doing it was highly illegal and the punishment was exceedingly harsh. They'd broken so many laws already, what's another little capital offense amongst friends?

When the _Black Cat _drops from hyperspace the young twi'lek is shocked by the world that lay before them. She wasn't entirely sure what to expect from a place so far into uncharted space, but this certainly was not it.

It was unremarkable in every way, and in that way it was remarkable. A simple grey-beige world. There were no discernable features; no mountains, no canyons, and not a single water feature. There was no ice at the poles and no clouds in the atmosphere. This dead world was set against a backdrop of the galaxy that nearly filled the sky. They were at the edge of everything and the expansive void of deep space.

Rast lands the ship near another ship that was in the process of being completely buried in sand. I looked to be a light freighter based on the size of the mound but only a portion of the topside and a long range comms array were above the sand so it was impossible to identify.

Once the _Black Cat _touches down Rast unbuckles his harness and springs from the seat with great urgency. Zamila follows suit, as does Jez, and they follow after him. They find him in the main living area digging through the pile of clothes he had designated as his and began layering up.

"What's going on, Rast," Jez asks with concern.

"What," he responds with nervous chuckle, "I'm just eager to find all that salvage."

"What salvage," Zamila responds with suspicion, "All I saw was a buried freighter. And why are you layering up, it looks like a desert out there?"

"Not all deserts are hot," Rast fires back, ignoring her other concern.

Rast steps over to Jez and kisses her, confirming Zamila's suspicion that their relationship had moved on from casual acquaintances.

"I'll be back in a couple hours. This place is totally safe," Rast says again before planting another long, and lingering kiss on Jez.

The man wraps cloth around his face and opens the door. Icy wind blasts through the opening as the ramp extends to the shifting sands below. Once Rast reaches the bottom, the ramp retracts and the door closes. Scattered around the floor around the recently closed door was a layer of very fine sand, almost like silt or dust.

Without words the two women rush back over to the cockpit in time to watch the mysterious man disappear into a thick cloud of dust.


	7. Chapter 7

Rast was relieved that he managed to be able to get off the ship without too much explanation. The return will be simple enough. He'll just explain that his information was bad, there wasn't anything of interest and they'd be off to the next place.

The Force had been with him this far. Being captured by some opportunistic slavers on Malastare didn't seem like the best turn of events but then waking up on board a ship with two rather naive women in command was exactly where he needed to be to get to the First Temple.

The twi'lek was smart enough it seemed but she didn't know people. She had been apparently sheltered by her father on some backwater world, so she didn't know deception. The human woman was damaged, hurt by so many for so long, so eager for any warmth and affection. He had planted the seeds for a romantic entanglement and they'd be physically intimate soon he wagered. He couldn't have had a better pair of traveling partners.

Nezu Kazeri had told him the place was cold but he had not anticipated it would be like this. Nezu told him the atmosphere was breathable, but he failed to mention just how thin the air actually was. Walking in this sand would have been exhausting in any event, but he finds himself having to stop every few meters to catch his breath.

The entrance wasn't far but he could only see a thick fog of dust. This world was tidally locked to a small, orange, and ancient star. Though he was on the side of perpetual daylight, it seemed to do little to warm him. The dark side of the world had to be deadly cold.

Nezu gave him the coordinates as well as the last puzzle piece. Rast looks down at his tracker. The entrance was straight ahead. The tracker was honed in on a two-way communicator which, lucky for Rast, still had enough juice for him to pick up its location.

The entrance, a small opening in the sandy floor, lay ahead and Rast had to dig to access the spiral stone staircase that would lead to the temple. The temple had been rumored to have reached high into the sky eons ago, but has been worn down so that only the lower levels remain.

Rast slides into the opening and finds himself in a spiral staircase of black stone. He switches on his flashlight and can see strange runes carved into rock and they glow red, like hot metal when his light touches them.

When Rast finally reaches the bottom after over an hour of descending he walks out into a wide space of total blackness. He aims the beam of light ahead of him but it finds nothing but more space. He points the light at the ground to avoid falling off a ledge, but that is all it can help with. In the distance he sees what he is looking for, a point of red glow in the dark distance.


	8. Chapter 8

Jez sighs sorrowfully as Rast disappears into the swirling dust. She'd only just met the man and she felt much more affection for him than she really should at this point. It had been some time since she'd known a man who wasn't abusive, or exploitative, and she supposed a good argument could be made that she'd never known one.

Jez was born on the lowest levels of Coruscant. Her father was killed before she was born in a death-stick deal gone bad. Her mother was a troubled person with a taste for spice so consuming that she sold her only daughter to the hutts before Jez had seen her seventh birthday.

Jez had ended up on Nal Hutta shortly after being sold to Husdaa, a minor figure in the Hutt Clan but a big deal in the Lower Coruscant spice trade. The slug kept a palace outside of Bilbousa set amongst a vast, sweltering, and foul smelling bog.

Husdaa was gluttonous, even for a hutt, and his kitchens operated day and night. Jez would be a dishwasher but as a young girl she did not take to a life of servitude easily until the gamorrean task-master Grig properly motivated her with regular beatings and frequent jabs with his nerf-prod.

Humans were neither a common or welcome site on Nal Hutta and even the other slaves would be cruel to her. At an age where most people can rely on the care of parents, Jez was entirely on her own.

"I don't like this, Jez," the twi'lek girl said fuming, "What are we supposed to be doing here while he's out there roaming?"

"I don't know, Zee," Jez sighs as she slouches against the back wall of the cockpit, "I need something to eat. You want something?"

Zamila shakes her head, "No. I'm going to work on those transponder codes."

Zamila rushes past Jez, her lekku bouncing wildly as she storms away. Jez takes one last look at the dust clouded wastes before heading back to the galley.

In Husdaa's kitchens Jez had begun to learn the culinary trade from an ithorian called Moe. Jez loved the skill it took to turn base ingredients into something wonderful. Best of all, you have to taste what you are cooking and so you were able to eat something other than the standard slave diet of swamp tubers and grist-porridge. Moe had taken her on as a sort of appentice and she had heard that some slave chefs could rise to notoriety and gain their freedom. Fate had a different path for young Jez.

The _Black Cat's _galley is a disaster of encrusted plates and flatware. She smirks at the idea that after everything that she'd been through, she's back in the kitchen doing dishes. She sighs and grabs a plate and starts to scrape.

When Jez was thirteen or maybe fourteen, Husdaa came through the kitchen, which he never did, with a human man. The man was tall, thin, and his hair was streaked with gray. He had a great beak of a nose and eyes that seemed to lack life, like a droid's optic inputs, she thought.

Moe was showing Jez how to properly debone a rock fowl when the man and hutt came over to them.

Husdaa croaks in huttese, "Well?"

The man stares at Jez rubbing his chin, "She'll do," he says in his own near perfect huttese before he turns and walks out of the kitchen.

"Good news, girl," the hutt exclaims, his corpulent body jiggling as he speaks, "You'll be going to Nar Shaddaa, to the Correllian Sector."

"But master, I'm learning to become a chef with Moe."

"Silence, girl," the hutt continues, "The deal has been done. Pack your things at once."

The slug turns and slithers out of the kitchen. Jez remembers hugging Moe and crying. Moe holding her and telling her it was going to be alright. But it wasn't going to be alright. She'd learned that Husdaa sold her for access to a supply of rare, soft body insects. She had always hoped he choked on those bugs.

Jez dries the last dish and places it in the cupboard and stands back to see what she accomplished.

"Still got it," she smirks, looking at the now spotless galley.

The _Black Cat _had one of these newer food synthesizers but to Jez it always felt like cheating. She puts a pot on the stove to boil some water.

The man Husdaa sold her to had a peculiar appetite that anywhere else in the galaxy would have landed him in a cage. In Hutt Space it was frowned upon but most turned a blind eye to it.

Whatever could be said about Husdaa, he was a shrewd businessman. Jez figures he acquired her at a young age with a mind to sell her off to Kel Nesdit when she was "old enough" for his taste. An investment kf sorts.

Kel Nesdit was what was called an importer. This meant he was a fence for smugglers and thieves, a go-between between the black market and the more genteel residents of Nal Hutta and Nar Shaddaa. Why they would rather deal with an abuser of young girls, than honest, hard-working criminals, she never understood.

Jez takes the noodles off the stove to cool. Zee said she didn't want anything but she made enough for her anyway. After Jez brews herself a cup of caff and puts some noodles into a bowl, she sits down at one of the tables in the dining area.

The noodles aren't the best she made, but not bad considering what she had to work with. When she's done eating, and after she cleans her bowl and cup, she goes to clean another one of the cabins.

Kel Nesdit abused her for a few years until she was too old for him and then he used her to grease the palms of prospective and current business partners. With her new job Jez got a level of autonomy; she still had to go on countless "dates" but she did get to leave the Correlian Sector compound, and get away from Kel.

Jez's dates would go out of their way (most of them anyway) to convince themselves that the dated were something that they weren't, that Jez had a choice. This meant dinners, concerts, and parties. Jez could almost convince herself that she was free, that she had a choice, but the bill always came, and Jez always had to pay up.

Jez enters one of the slaver's rooms that hadn't been cleaned out yet. It was certainly one of the quarren's rooms. She knew their scent very well. Some unpleasant memories began to flood in and she pushes them away.

She dumps several dresser drawers onto the bed, throwing the trash to the side and the few items of value into a neat pile. When she picks it up, an innocuous little cylinder that could fit in the palm of her hand, she didn't recognize it for what it was at first. As she examines it closer the realization of what it was came to her. She wraps her hand around it and looks behind her to see if anyone is around before looking again.

Jez looks at the spice-shooter again, just curious if any of the drug was in it. She slides it open and can see it's nearly full. Fear, anger, and excitement swells in her.

She had started using spice shortly after Kel had pushed her onto his clients. Many of them were users, and users don't like to use alone if they can help it. It made coping with her circumstances a little more bearable at first but it soon became a desperate need.

She had been conflicted about using it in the beginning. She was a slave because of her mother's addiction to it. Slaves less fortunate than herself were worked to death in mines to acquire it. It's production and sale helped to empower the hutts and their affiliates like Kel. She hated everything about spice, except of course, how it made her feel.

"Hey, Jez," Zamila shouted, startling her to where she almost dropped the spice.

"Hey, Zee," she responds slyly tucking the spice into her waistband.

"I realize we haven't spent all that much time together and I thought we could get to know each other a little."

It would be nice to have a little girl time. The other girls in the cages were like frightened birds and she couldn't even remember any of their names. All of the people Jez had ever known were either victims or bullies and it was time to find out what Zee was.

"Yeah, sure," Jez responded, "I'd like that."

The two lounged and spoke while 9-LOM brought them cups of caff. For the first time in her life Jez told the whole sad story, and learned the young twi'lek's life was not exempt from heartache. Zee told her how her father had been killed by the slaver's in a shootout. She managed to get off a few good shots which was the only reason she made it out alive.

The whole time Zee was opening up to her Jez could feel the spice-shooter pressing up against her hip. Taunting her. Jez wanted to keep the girl talking for as long as possible because Jez knew what she was going to do once she was alone. She felt disgusted with herself because she could be honest about so much but not this one thing. Zamila was being so open and honest with her but Jez was still just a liar.


	9. Chapter 9

Rast's heart races with excitement as he comes closer and closer to the light. Finally the narrow walkway opens onto a platform and Rast finds the last clue, exactly where that poor fool Nezu had said it would be.

Rast nudges the corpse with his boot and it is stiff as the stone it lay upon. Rast shines his light on the body and though she had been there for almost two cycles, there were no signs of decay. She was pale, her open eyes, once were blue, were clouded over. Her mouth is open and it looks like her tongue is frozen to the floor. The shock and anguish of her death was frozen forever in this place, mere meters from what brought her here.

"You should have never trusted that scum," Rast tells her far too late to matter.

Rast sees the scorched hole Nezu put in her before he left her here. The little lizard monkey of a balosar couldn't even complete his task. He killed the poor woman for nothing. Rast didn't make the same mistake with Nezu Kazeri and he dispatched the worm quickly, once he got the information he needed.

"You deserved better than this, Master," Rast whispers before reaching down, parting her robes, and pulling the last piece of the puzzle he needed from her belt.

The bright green blade of pure energy crackles and hisses when it springs forth from the hilt. Rast moves the blade through the stale, frigid air and it groans with that familiar sound. The blade is heavier than he remembers but the kyber crystal was not attuned to him. Yet.

Rast slides open the cover of the light saber and plucks out the tiny green crystal, holding it tightly in his fist. He connects the nonfunctional lightsaber to his belt and walks toward the red glow.

The altar is round and made of the same black stone as the rest of the temple. Jutting from the center of the altar, roughly a meter above it, Rast can see a massive red kyber crystal. He suspects that the majority of it protrudes from the bottom of the platform and points down into the center of the chasm.

Rast holds the small green crystal in a clenched fist and presses his knuckles against the red kyber. He visualizes his pain, his anger and resentment, his darkest fears and most forbidden desires. He funnels his raw emotion into it.

Rast remembers his master being slain when he was still a young padawan learner, and he fixes that image in his mind. He focuses his sadness and loss and pours it into the crystal. He thinks about his capture and imprisonment on Coruscant. The fear and inescapable loneliness he felt as a prisoner at the Fortress Inquisitorius.

"What are you doing?"

Startled, Rast loses his concentration and nearly drops the kyber crystal. He turns and sees a young mirialan woman walk toward him. The white and brown robes of a padawan learner cling to her slender frame and billow behind her as she walks. Her silken black hair is cut short, and a single braid rests on her shoulder. Her kind brown eyes stare into his, and he has to avert his gaze.

"It had to be you didn't it," Rast mutters.

The girl smiles, " What are you talking about?"

"You're not really here," Rast utters knowing full well that this girl whom he'd cared so much for was gone forever.

"I'm right here, Drey"

"Don't call me that," Rast tells her and the words come out far more angry than he intends.

The mirialan girl steps forward and puts her hand on his shoulder. Her skin is yellow like the sunrise and he can see the little dots tattooed on her cheeks, "Our war is over, Drey. We can run away. We can finally be together."

The tears well in Rast's eyes, "I should have listened to you then. I regret not listening to you."

"We lost. Our fight is over, Drey…"

"Stop it. Please," Rast interrupts, his strength wavering.

She wraps her arms around him, "I can be yours. You can be mine. We can have a home, and children."

Rast can smell the sweet smell of the meiloorun blossom oil she put in her hair. His thoughts race back to all of those stolen moments at the temple back on Coruscant. How they came so close to being caught in the archives that one time.

"I'm still in there, Drey."

He wanted to believe that. Wanted it more than anything, but he knows that it isn't true. He gently pushes the girl away. He had nearly forgot what all this was. He almost made the same mistake that foolish balosar Nezu did.

"Didn't you love me once," the young mirialan whispers.

"I did. More than you ever knew," Rast whispers back.

She looks up at him and smiles. He smiles back.

"So you'll leave here," she asks with tears in her eyes, "You'll come find me."

"Oh, yes," he whispers, wrapping his hands tightly around her throat.

She struggles, beating at his chest, those brown eyes begging him to release her. Even though he knows that this is not real, it is the temple testing him, tempting him, it is difficult to go through with it.

Rast hisses, his words dripping with venom, "I will find you!"

The shock and horror on her beautiful face is almost too much to bear.

"I will find you, Sister!"

The thoughts and memories come flooding back. The failed escape from the Inquisitorius, being separated, put into isolation. How he was tortured first by droids, then by inquisitors, and finally, by her.

Before his eyes the suffocating girl changes. The red tattoos appear on her face. Those beautiful brown eyes turn black and yellow. The expression of fear and horror changes to excitement and pleasure.

"There you are, sister," Rast growls, "There's the girl I remember. The one that betrayed me. The one that tortured me for hours each day. The one that used my love and her sex to warp and manipulate my mind.

"There's the Emperor's pet! Vader's pupil! I am going to become what they would only let us get a glimpse of. I am going to obtain true power and then I will find you. I will find all of you, Seventh Sister!"

Her eyes roll back and her tongue lolls out of her mouth. Her face had turned back to the young girl he'd once loved. He kisses her forehead before letting her lifeless body drop to the ground.

There is a bright red flash and Rast is launched backwards and pushed away from the altar. He skids across the smooth stone floor and slips into unconsciousness. His body goes limp and the dark red kyber crystal slips from his hand and onto the hard, cold floor.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Jez stares through the cockpit glass as Zamila disappears into swirling dust. It had been many hours since Rast had left. They had tried hailing his communicator but there had been no response. Neither of them, especially Jez, entertained the idea of just leaving him here. Jez wanted to come with her but Zamila thought it better that she went alone. The logic was hard to argue with, Zee had a tough rural background, Jez did not. If Jez called for help she may end up back in slavery, but likely not into an Imperial prison.

Now Jez was alone on the ship with the three worst enemies an addict can have; access, isolation, and time. She touches the small metal device still tucked into her waistband, just to comfort herself in knowing it is still there. She can almost taste "the drip".

"Mistress," a mechanical voice interrupts the fantasy, "Is there anything you need?"

_Yes! Take this thing from me and drop it into the compactor!_ Jez turns to the protocol droid, "No. I don't think so."

"Yes, Mistress," the droid replies with something that sounded to Jez like disappointment.

9-LOM shuffles out of the cockpit to do whatever droids do when they aren't being useful. Out of everyone on board the _Black Cat_ she felt she had the most in common with the strange looking protocol droid, both of them had lived their lives concerned solely with the wants and needs of others. Her primary purpose her entire life had been to be used by people, just like the droid, except she didn't have the luxury to have the ugliness wiped away periodically. Even with this commonality, Jez didn't have any idea how to relate with him. What could they talk about? Their shared experience with the slavers had been wiped from his memory banks. Jez groans and leaves the cockpit.

When Kel had set her up on a "date" with the young spice dealer Renso Tan all those cycles ago he had hoped to gain access to his supplier, Kel didn't intend for a blaster bolt to his ugly bird face. When Jez fell in love with Renso, and ran away with him, she didn't intend to end up in a cage on board a slaver's yacht. _So much for best laid plans, _she thinks.

Renso was charming, interesting, and the first man in a long time who saw Jez as an actual person. To Renso's credit he did try to buy Jez's freedom from Kel. Kel refused of course. It wasn't that Kel needed her in particular, he had several girls just like her. The man couldn't bear the thought of his property finding happiness. The look of surprise on his face when Renso pulled that blaster was so delicious and she wished she had a holo of it so she can watch it over and over again. Kel was the first man she witnessed being killed, but he wasn't the last. Renso had many enemies, especially after taking out a popular importer for the sake of a slave girl. The lovers left a string of smoking corpses across Hutt Space in the four or so cycles they spent together.

Renso was a passionate man; his love was as intense as his anger. When he killed Jez's master she thought he had secured her freedom, but she soon learned that not all bondage is done with slave collars and contracts. One of the most potent leashes the gangster had on young Jez was a seemingly endless supply of spice. Jez had been a major contributing factor to Renso's fall.

Before the two were together, Renso had never touched spice. He had deduced, correctly in fact, that getting high on his own supply would be a liability that he could not afford. It wasn't long before the two would be doing the narcotic together and soon Renso would go from a massive supplier in Hutt Space and the Outer Rim to just another spice-head, small time criminal.

Jez and Renso's spree of crime came to an abrupt end when Renso burned a group of slavers on Nal Hutta. He took their money to facilitate a large score of spice, and instead took his girlfriend to sip cocktails lakeside on Dandoran. The slavers caught up with them of course, but by then the credits were gone, as was the spice. To save his own skin, he gives the slavers "his last thing of value."

The betrayal of Renso was bad enough, but having to detox from spice, abruptly and completely in a durasteel cage being pawed at by slavers was unbearable. Jez had no idea how long the detox took, or how long she was kept in that cage. Alone in that dark room, time was impossible to calculate. Other girls were eventually added, some were sold off, but Jez remained. It would have been unbearable but for the first time in many years she could think clearly. Though Jez was locked away in a small cage she felt a level of freedom she could scarcely remember. Now, with this tiny device in her waistband, all of that is at risk.

Jez cleans out the last cabin and fortunately (or unfortunately) there was no other hidden contraband. She makes herself a cup of caff and something to eat. She walks through the engineering level where 9-LOM was straightening out one of the crew cabins. With nothing else to do, Jez takes a shower, fuses with her hair, paints her nails. She makes for herself a similar clothing to the ones now crumpled on the floor around the spice-shooter. She tries to sleep but she is restless and only tosses and turns.

Jez was angry. She was frustrated. She was bored to tears. Finally her resolve ceases to keep her from picking up the spice-shooter amongst the pile of dirty clothes, and so she does just that. She places the rounded end up her nostril and hits the little button at the back while she snorts.

The spice hits her nasal cavity like a stampeding bantha and she falls back onto the bed. She can taste the bitter, acrid chemical as it drips down her throat and a warm numbing sensation reverberates through her. She feels so good. Jez remembers instantly how she willingly surrendered so much of herself to the substance. She bites her lip, already fantasizing about her next hit. It's like the first time again all those cycles ago. Suddenly, something has changed. She feels her face flush and her heart race. Something is wrong.

The most common way Jez consumed spice over all those cycles, her entire adolescence and most of her adulthood, was smoking it. She would snort it on occasion but what she didn't know was that dealers would cut their product with other substances. Pure spice, like the stuff in the shooter, was a rare commodity. Perhaps when she was using everyday she could have handled it, but not when It's been months since she's had it in her system. Perhaps if the shooter were calibrated for her size and not a much larger quarren, that may have helped too.

Jez leaps up from the bed and vomits immediately . She tries to steady herself by holding onto the wall but her knees buckle and she almost falls over. She stumbles out into the main living area and tries to call for 9-LOM but it comes out as a garbled mess. She stumbles and falls hard onto the ground but she's too numb to feel it. A warm feeling spreads down her leg as she loses control of her bladder.

Jez is too weak to get back on her feet. She tries to crawl but her arms are weak and uncoordinated. She knows she's dying.

She looks up and can see Renso standing over her with that stupid grin. Kel is with him, a charred hole in place of that bird face. The two laugh hysterically at her but the only sound she hears is a loud ringing. A black figure walks towards her between the two laughing men, it's skeletal hand stretches out towards her and the world goes black.


	11. Chapter 11

Zamila tracks Rast's communicator as she struggles to keep her footing in the soft sand. Before she left the _Black Cat_ she layered as much clothing as she could and the freezing air still bites at her skin.

Zamila finally sees an opening in the desert floor. She jogs over to it but becomes quickly winded from traversing the loose sand and breathing the thin air.

She reaches the opening and can see that the sand around it had been disturbed. A steep, black stone staircase leads down and Zamila hesitates only for a moment before she descends into the dark.

She calls out to Rast every few moments. Zamila feels her heart beat rapidly. She was afraid but Rast, Jez, and 9-LOM we're her new family and she wasn't going to give up on any of them. When she reaches the bottom of the steps she enters into a cavernous structure so large that the beam of her light reaches out and only touches more darkness, more empty space.

"Rast!"

Her voice echoes endlessly. Zamila walks into the dark for around half an hour, watching the ground, calling for Rast, before her light suddenly goes out and she is engulfed in darkness. Panic swells as she aggressively flips the switch on the light to no avail. Zamila frantically shakes it in the hopes of getting a moment of illumination but it is of no use. It is as dead as this planet that was increasingly looking like, would be her tomb. In anger and frustration she sends the dead piece of technology sailing through the air. Moments pass and no sound of the light striking anything is returned. It is as if the air itself had snatched it away.

"Help me," she screams but the only response is her own voice echoing back to her.

Zamila doesn't want to starve alone in the darkness. She wants to run, in any direction, for good or for ill in the vain hope of connecting with something. She feels herself going mad with fear, grief, and hopelessness when she hears a sound. It is soft, gentle at first, just within her ear cones ability to perceive it. It sounded like a whisper.

"Hello?"

She stands perfectly still, and hears it again. A soft, feminine voice, barely audible, in a strange language.

"Who's there?"

A person could be standing beside her and she wouldn't know, it is so dark, vast, and empty.

"Please," she pleads into the void.

"Why have you come here, child," the whisper asks.

"Wha… what?"

"Why have you come to this place?"

"To find my friend," Zamila responds not entirely sure she isn't talking to herself.

"Such a magnificent place, and such a pedestrian quest," the whisper chides.

"Who are you," Zamila asks turning, trying and failing to discern the direction the voice was coming from.

"Who? Such a pedestrian question," the voice utters with disappointment, "What, when, how; much better questions."

Zamila can hear the voice so clearly now. It is no longer a whisper. It's as if she is right beside her.

"Where is Rast? How do we get out of here," Zamila cries.

"How boring," the feminine voice scoffs, "In the time since I had last spoken with another, stars have been born, died, and reborn, and you bore me."

Zamila could feel her fear burned away by anger and frustration. She did not like being toyed with. She wanted to squeeze the breath from this person as she had done to the slaver Andan.

"Oh! Now that is interesting," the voice chuckles, "Who was this man Andan?"

"What?!"

"See," the voice scolds, "You're boring me again. Andan? The man that you murdered?"

Zamila's heart sinks into her chest. She did what she had to do to survive. She did not regret killing the slaver, but she would have lived the rest of her life before telling another soul what she had done. She had already lied to Jez, even after the poor woman had confessed to so much.

"He was a slaver! He was going sell me to be used," Zamila blurts out into the darkness.

"He was, yes, but not in the way you want me believe you were going to be used," the voice says with piqued interests, "Killed your father too did he? Took your home from you"

"Yes," Zamila replies in a whisper, tears welling in her eyes.

"Not so boring after all," the voice says, "I will help you, but you must come to me."

"Where are you? I can't see."

"Good," the feminine voice answers, "your eyes lie to you. Follow my voice."

Zamila listens intently as she places one foot in front of the other. The voice occasionally corrects her. In the blackness Zamila sees a distant reddish glow.

"You're almost here."

As Zamila approaches she sees the source of the strange red light and The Voice. Hovering above an intricately carved black stone altar is a small pyramid shaped object with strange markings.

"First steps, Zamila Ashrand," The Voice calls to her, "First steps."

Zamila is drawn to the object. It's power is palpable, but there is something else, something harder to define. As her fingers come in contact with its surface she is blinded by a red flash that drops her to her knees. She groans as she sits up. She squints as her eyes struggle to adjust to the brightness. Zamila stares in awe at the temple around her.

The chamber is massive on a scale that Zamila could have hardly fathomed. Stone pillars reach high into a vaulted ceiling. A maze of narrow walkways lead to a number of platforms, and all of it is suspended above a massive chasm. Every surface is emblazoned with strange writing that glows red, illuminating the temple. Stone that had seemed black to her only moments before was in actuality white stone that looked pink in the ethereal light. She turns and sees that the path that she had just walked to reach the altar was less than a meter thick and dropped on either side into the seemingly bottomless abyss.

"I told you," The Voice whispers, " Your eyes lie to you. This. What you are seeing. That is the truth."

"What is this place?"

" A temple. Ancient at the time your atoms were forged in the heart of a Star, and then scattered into space."

"What happened to the people who built all of this?"

"Gone to join the dust of every building, every plant, every animal, any of them had ever known. All good things must end. Eventually," The Voice tells her.

"How did it happen?"

"A story for another time," The Voice says dismissively.

Zamila looks out at other paths winding to other platforms and she can see sprawled out across another nearby platform the man she'd come to the temple to rescue. She plucks the strange object from its place above the altar and rushes cautiously down the narrow walkway. She makes her way across another narrow walkway leading to a large red crystal, and to Rast.

On her way she passes a corpse robed in brown cloth. She worried that the woman had been killed by, and possibly killed Rast, but could tell that she had been there for some time and while Rast was unconscious he seemed otherwise unharmed.

Zamila can see over the edge of the platform where it drops into a dark abyss. _I wonder how deep it is._

"It goes all the way through to the other side of the planet, " The Voice replies, "But again, a story for another time."

Before Zamila can find out more she hears movement behind her and turns to see Rast regaining consciousness. He fumbles around on the ground until he finds whatever it was he was looking for. He pulls a metallic cylinder from his belt, slides it open, and places the item into it.

"What was that," the twi'lek girl asks as Rast groggily gets to his feet.

"Nothing," Rast replies, trying to stretch out a kink in his neck, "We should go."

Zamila wants to tell Rast about the bizarre object she found, and how it'd been speaking to her but The Voice tells her, "Not to him. Not yet."

The walk back up the spiral staircase seemed to last forever and the air got thinner as they climbed higher, making each step more laborious than the last. When they finally reach the surface they both collapse in exhaustion and lie there in the cold sand for several minutes.

"We've got to keep moving," Rast shouts over the howling wind, "We'll freeze out here."

"Just a few more," Zamila pleads with gasping breath.

"No," Rast says as he struggles to get on his feet, "I'll carry you if I have to."

Rast puts out his hand. Zamila takes it and he helps pull her to her feet.

"I don't really have to carry you, do I?"

"I'll make it," Zamila declares as she follows Rast back toward her ship.

They finally reach the _Black Cat_ where the fine sand has begun to swallow it's landing gear. As they approach they both slow their gait, sensing the same unease.

The _Black Cat's_ boarding ramp is extended and out walks Jez followed by a figure dressed in black. Her hands are bound in front of her and her face is twisted in bewilderment and fear. Jez wears clothes similar to those that had revealed too much skin for Zamila's comfort before, and she shakes violently from the blasting cold. The human woman looks like a perfect mess. She is pale, covered in sweat, and her eyes are swollen. A red mark covers the side of her face. It hasn't bruised yet, but it certainly will.

"Dreyden Shay," the man in black shouts over the howling wind, "You found the first temple it would seem."

The hooded man descends the ramp shoving Jez before him. On his arm, emblazoned in white, the symbol of the Galactic Empire.

"Our sister didn't understand why you'd run off the way you did," the man in black says coldly, "She was surprised you'd want to keep such a prize from our master."

"She's not my sister and Vader is not my master," the man that Zamila knew as Rast emphatically declared.

The man in black continues, "I tried to tell her you were weak, had always been weak, but she insisted I come bring you back into the fold."

The mysterious man shoves Jez and she sends up a plume of dust when she hits the ground. Jez unsteadily leaps to her feet and runs over to Zamila who wraps her arms around the shaking woman, pulling off several layers of her own to cover her. The man in black pulls back his hood and begins to walk around the crew of the _Black Cat_ in a wide arch.

He was human and would have been a very attractive man, Zamila thought, had she not hated him so much already for his mistreatment of Jez. His skin is dark like the rich soil she worked on her farm. His head was shaved bald and his features were pleasing with the exception of a large scar that split his left eyebrow and led down to his chin.

"Qiron," Rast shouts while the two men circle each other menacingly, "I should have known she'd have sent her dog after me."

"Oh, I am nobody's dog, Dreyden," Qiron smirks pulling a round metal ring bisected by a long cylinder from his back, "I will be fully inducted into the Inquisitorius when I return with you, either dead or alive. Be stupid, Dreyden. Please. Say you won't be coming along peacefully."

Rast pulls the cylinder he had so poorly tried to conceal back in the temple from his belt and it ignites with a hiss. A searing blade of red energy emits from it.

"Thanks Dreyden, I am so going to enjoy this," Qiron smiles and ignites his own saber.

"I didn't think being cut to pieces would be so enjoyable to you," Rast sneers.

The two men circle each other and the circle steadily tightens. The two blades sparkle as the cold gusts of fine sand are turned to tiny pellets of glass on contact with them. Zamila didn't know much about lightsabers, but she knew the bad guys carried the red ones. She didn't know what to make of Rast, or Dreyden, or whatever his name actually was, wielding one, or what two men wielding them against one another meant.

Zamila tries to rush Jez back to the _Black Cat_, but she is shoved back hard by an unseen force and loses her footing. Zamila pulls her blaster but it's as if it is snatched from her hand and it disappears into billowing clouds of dust.

"Not so fast young lady," Qiron chuckles, "I'm here for you as well."

"You leave them out of this," Rast yells with a lunging strike that is skillfully parried by his foe.

"She hasn't told you yet? Oh how delightful," Qiron spins, bringing his blade down towards Rast's head, but Rast brings his own blade in time to block the attack. The blades hiss like an angry serpent when they connect, "She's a child of the force you fool. It's disheartening to see that your skill with a lightsaber isn't the only thing that's gotten rusty.

Rast angrily swings his blade in a combination of strikes, all of which Qiron easily parries.

"He is not going to survive this fight," The Voice whispers to Zamila, "He is no match for this man. Both of them know that by now."

Qiron initiates a series of strikes that Rast struggles to block and is pushed back towards the two women huddled in the sand.

"You see," The Voice continues, "He is toying with him. He relishes in the fear and frustration of his opponent. He is like a bored predator playing with his meal because he can't bear the thought of the hunt ending."

Zamila raises her hand, focuses all of her anger, fear, and hate as she had done to Andan back in the cave on Dargenas, but it only elicits a smile from Qiron.

"I feel a tickle," Qiron chuckles, "I cannot wait to train your little twi'lek waif."

Rast angrily tries at another combination of strikes but Qiron parries and with a twist of his wrist, sends Rast's lightsaber flying from his hand. Rast outstretches his hand, trying to pull the weapon back into his grasp but Qiron force pushes him and he lands hard onto his back.

"Now it will be over," The Voice tells Zamila.

"What can I do," Zamila cries.

Jez, chattering looks up in confusion, "Wh... Wh... What... ttt?"

"You can do nothing," The Voice replies, "If you try you will join your friend in the darkness…However…"

Zamila anxiously asks, "What!? Tell me!"

Qiron stalks towards Rast laughing maniacally while Rast tries to stand only to be force pushed back down again.

"Give yourself to me," The Voice says coldly, "Let go of your will."

"I don't know what that means!"

Jez starts to pull away from Zamila, afraid of the conversation the twi'lek girl seemed to be having with herself. Qiron slashes across the ground in front of Rast leaving streaks of glowing red, molten glass.

"Say yes or he dies, she ends up in a brothel, and you…"

"Yes," Zamila utters.


	12. Chapter 12

Rast had hoped that he would have time to train before he was tested, but now it seemed, the test had come early and he had failed. Qiron emerges from the dust, his eyes seem to reflect the red glow of his lightsaber. He looks like a venomous serpent, coiling, readying itself to strike.

Qiron slashes at the ground as he approaches sending tiny particles of glowing red glass to be carried off by the wind.

"So weak, Dreyden. So weak. I will tell Seventh Sister that you put up a much better fight than this. If for no other reason than bringing back the head of one so easily bested as a trophy would be more than a little embarrassing."

Qiron raises his blade to deliver the killing blow when suddenly, the blasting wind stops. There isn't even a breeze. There is an eerie, quiet, calm. The dust and sand suspended in the air around them begin to fall to the ground and the thick veil it casted begins to dissipate. Qiron turns to see the twi'lek girl approaching them, walking slowly.

"Before I take your head, maybe I'll make you watch me give the girl her first lesson," Qiron laughs, "What do you think, Dreyden?"

Rast screams, suprising himself with the sincerity of his plea, "Zamila! Get back to the Cat with, Jez! Get out of here!"

Rast was ready to face death but he wanted the two women to go on, to survive. He hasn't cared about anybody like that since that beautiful young mirialan broke his heart.

Rast jumps to his feet, hoping to buy them a few moments to escape but Qiron notices and force pushes him to the ground, "In a minute, Dreyden. Be patient. I am going to play with your girl a little first."

"Have mercy, please," Zamila pleads, in her hands she holds a small pyramid shaped object.

"Where in the hell did you find a Sith Holocron," Qiron snaps, "No. Don't tell me. It will be so much more delightful to make you talk. They all talk eventually. Isn't that right, Dreyden?"

"Get out of here! Go," Rast pleads, knowing full well the methods of information extraction Qiron refers to, having suffered them himself.

"Please, sir. Have mercy on us," Zamila cries placing the holocron on the ground in front of her.

Qiron steps towards her, his lightsaber humming as he swings it back and forth through the calm, still air. Zamila drops to her knees and lowers her head.

"Mercy is weakness, little girl," Qiron sneers, "that will be my first lesson to you."

Qiron inexplicably stops several meters before the girl. He seems frozen, like an insect trapped in amber.

"I wrote that lesson," Zamila says in a voice not her own, smoky and sinister, "and it is going to be your last."

Qiron's lightsaber powers off and is torn from his grasp. The weapon floats in the air and spontaneously disassembles into its constituent parts. The components all fall into the sand except the small red kyber crystal. The crystal begins to emit a bright red light that turns pink and finally white. The now clear crystal flies into Zamila's open palm and she places it in the pocket of her old flight jacket.

The twi'lek girl stands and paces in front of the helpless man. Even her walk is not her own. He had heard of possession before, but thought it was only stories.

"You like to drag defenseless women out into the cold to freeze," The Voice asks through Zamila.

"I… I… I saved her! She was dying! We got a distress call from some droid. They dispatched me and I saved her life," Qiron declares.

The possessed twi'lek stops her pacing and leans in to face Qiron. The smile on her face was similar to one a person would have when talking down to a small child.

"I see. I see," The Voice replies, "Maybe you are only lacking the proper context."

"I will tell them I missed you. That I didn't find you in time," Qiron pleads, seeming to understand a measure of the power he now faced.

Zamila raises her hands and Qiron is hoisted high into the air. Rast is frozen in disbelief. He doesn't know what to make of what was happening. He had no idea how Zamila had found a holocron, let alone actually use it, but it was obviously behind what was happening. The wind begins to blow as it was before and they are pelted with sand and dust.

"I'm going to see if I can provide you with the proper context," The Voice says bemusedly.

Zamila's hand swipes as if she were trying to shoo a small insect. Qiron's clothes are torn from his body as if they were made of paper leaving the man naked in the blasting cold. The helpless man shakes violently like a leaf on a tree and cries out. Zamila stares up at the man and bites her lip.

"P… P… Ppplease," Qiron tries to speak.

"I can't hear you, Qiron Naz" Zamila cups a hand over her ear cone, "You're going to have to speak up!"

"Ppplease! Mercy!"

"What was that?!"

Qiron screams over the howling wind, "Mercy! Have mmm...ercy on... on... meee! Please!"

"I thought mercy was weakness," The Voice replies, "Do I look weak to you?"

"Nnnn… Nooo!"

"Hmmm," The Voice moans with satisfaction, "It's been so long since I've been able to play."

Qiron continues to yell out as his extremeties visibly begin to freeze. Zamila strokes a lek and her closed eyes flutter.

"You see," The Voice says, "It is like the sweetest music. The finest meal. It sustains me. It makes me strong."

Zamila pinches the air and swipes her hand as if to pull aside a tiny curtain. There a disgusting tearing sound, like the quick peel of spacer's tape from a vinyl seat. Qiron's skin is torn from his body as effortlessly as a blanket is pulled from a bed and is carried off in the maelstrom.

The man shrieks in agony. It is unlike anything Rast had ever heard before, and he hoped to never hear again. It is guttural, animalistic. He is nauseated by the scene and has to look away, but the image of the screaming flayed man would be burned into his mind forever. He looks at Zamila and the look on her face is one of pleasure. It is almost sexual.

"You see, little Zamila," The Voice says over the screams, "Plenty of predators will toy with their prey. Qiron here forgot one of nature's most fundamental laws. There is always a bigger predator."

Rast's hate and animosity for his foe had all but vanished. All he had for Qiron now is pity. He was so afraid of whatever entity had power over the twi'lek, but he couldn't handle it anymore.

"Zamila," Rast yells out over the wind and screams, "End this!"

"Zamila is not in at the moment," The Voice says coldly.

Rast stands there facing her, fearful, unable to move. He had no idea what she would next. Moments pass. The screams slow and eventually stop as shock finally and mercifully sets in.

"This isn't fun anymore," the voice says with disappointment. Zamila sticks out her bottom lip like a pouting child. She makes one final motion, like threading a needle, and Qiron's entire skeleton is pulled from his body, while the rest of him drops to the ground in a soggy twitching heap of flesh and viscera.

Zamila collapses to the ground as well. Forgeting his own fear, Rast runs over to her, not exactly sure what to do. He considers leaving her on the desolate rock, but decides to take her and to leave the holocron in the sand.

Jedi and Sith holocrons were ancient repositories of knowledge. Leaving one behind now, especially considering how unprepared for a fight he really was, was not an easy decision to make. Whatever entity that possessed the young twi'lek came from that thing, and it wasn't something he wanted to take off this world.

He didn't want anyone else to recover it either, but even touching it was not something he was willing to do. The sand would cover it soon anyway. Rast lifts the unconscious girl and tosses her over his shoulder.

As Rast walks towards the _Black Cat_ he spies his new lightsaber sticking halfway out of the sand and he concentrates and pulls it into his open hand. _Was it worth it? _He asks himself.

Rast finds Jez lying face down in the sand near the ramp of the Black Cat. He sets Zamila down and rushes over to her. She is still alive but her pulse is weak and thready. He hoist her onto his shoulders and carries her aboard the ship and into a bed before heading back out to do the same for Zamila. He had hoped to enlist the assistance of the LOM droid, but the black parts scattered about the main living area tells him everything he needed to know about that prospect.

Rast fires up the ion drives and engages the repulsor lifts. In moments he has the vessel streaking into the upper atmosphere and then into the black vacuum of space. Both of his friends were in dire need of medical attention and there was only one spot in the whole of the galaxy that he knew of to bring them to that would not land them into Imperial custody. Strange to even think the word friend.

Rast plugs the coordinates into the nav computer, grateful that a Star Destroyer wasn't lying in wait to thwart their escape, and launches the _Black Cat_ into hyperspace. Rast only hopes that the old hospital ship, once the property of the Galactic Republic, was still in operation where it had been before his little nap in carbonite; in orbit around an uninhabited world in Hutt Space.

Alone and uncertain in the cockpit, Rast begins to weep. It was all too much. Had his desire for vengeance killed two innocents, both of whom helped him when he was in need? Was his desire for the power to settle a score with a woman he once loved a worthwhile goal, or was the cost too high? What and who was he willing to sacrifice for this end?

He witnessed the pure awesome, terrible, power of the darkside. Was this something that he actually wanted? Burdened with doubt, and tortured by emotion, Rast sobbed for the first time in years. The only thing he wanted in this moment was for his friends to be okay.


End file.
